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MACAULAY'S 

SPEECHES ON COPYRIGHT 

AND 

LINCOLN'S 

ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 



EDITED BY 

L. A. PITTENGER, A.M. 

HEAD OF THE DEPARTA^ENT OF ENGLISH 
KENT NORAVAL SCHOOL, KENT, OHIO 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 



1^3 



c\\i>r 



<fy 



Copyright, 1914, by 
American Book Company 

m.\caulay's speeches on copyright, 
Lincoln's address at cooper uniom 



AUG 28 1914 



hri^o 



•CI.A379273 



CONTEXTS 

PAGE 

Introduction to Macaulay's Speeches on Copyright .... 5 

A Brief Sketch of Macaulay's Life S 

Some Facts Relating to Macaulay's Parliamentary Experience . 9 

Copyright 12 

BibHography 14 

First Speech on Copyright 15 

Second Speech on Copyright 32 

Introduction to Lincoln's Address .\t Cooper L'nion ... 41 

A Brief Sketch of Lincoln's Life 41 

Some Facts leading up to the Cooper Lnion Speech .... 45 

The Cooper Union Speech 51 

Bibliography S7 

Address at Cooper Union 59 

Suggestions for Study 

Macaulay's Speeches S; 

Lincoln's Address 84 

Notes S5 



INTRODUCTION 

A BRIEF SKETCH OF MACAULAY'S LIFE 

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley 
Temple, Leicestershire, October 25, 1800. On his father's 
side he descended from an excellent line of Scotch Presbyte- 
rians — many of whom were ministers. His father, Zachary, 
was a stern hero who never quite fitted into his environment. 
He reminds one of Carlyle in that he had great ideas always 
gnawing at his heart, but unlike Carlyle he could not express 
the thoughts that strove for utterance. He went to Jamaica 
as a bookkeeper for a Glasgow firm. While there he became 
so disgusted with negro slavery that he refused an excellent 
salary to remain, and returned home, when twenty-four years 
old, to devote the remainder of his life to fighting negro 
slavery in the British colonies. Macaulay's mother, Selina 
Mills, was of Quaker birth, and possessed an aflPectionate 
nature, well tempered with a clear vision of what was best 
for her children and a firm resolution to carry her program 
to a successful conclusion. Certainly, Macaulay's birth 
promised much. 

While yet a small child Macaulay displayed a remarkable 
precocity. He was a great reader and an inveterate talker. 
This precocity might easily have been his ruin, but his clear- 
headed mother guided him so intelligently that there was 
never a sign of "spoiling". An interesting instance of his 
premature mental development is that told of a visit to the 
house of a friend when he was only four years old. A serv- 
ant unfortunately spilled some hot coflFee over the boy's legs. 
The hostess was, naturally, very compassionate and did all 
she could to ease the little suflFerer. After a few moments 
she asked him how he was feeling, and "the little fellow looked 
up in her face and replied, *Thank you, madam, the agony 
is abated.'" 

A superior" indicates a note at the end of the volume. 

S 



6 INTRODUCTION 

When yet a mere child he attended an excellent grammar 
school where he made wonderful progress. As early as seven 
years of age he wrote an epitome of history in which he passed 
many sage judgments on men and events. When twelve 
years old he was sent from home to a fitting school, and in 
1818 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. While there' 
he developed a strong hatred for mathematics, read widely, 
and became an ardent partisan in national politics. He met 
there the Coleridges, Hyde and Charles Villiers, Romilly, 
Praed, and Charles Austin. He received his master's de- 
gree in 1824, and became a fellow with £300 a year. Two 
years later he was admitted to the bar, but he never used 
his legal education to any extent until he wrote the Indian 
Penal Code during his stay in the Orient. 

Of his early contributions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine 
the two poems, Ivry and Nasehy still live. In these first 
productions Macaulay also showed a natural gift in dialogue 
and dramatic creations. But it was not until 1825, when 
his Essay on Milton appeared in the Edinburgh Review, that 
he manifested the full power of his genius and caused all 
literary England to kneel at his shrine. He became a social 
favorite, and decided to abandon the idea of practicing law 
that he might spend all his time in literary labors. This 
privilege was denied him, however, for he was to be a busy 
man in the practical aflPairs of life; but in addition to all his 
political responsibilities he continued to contribute to the 
Review for the remainder of his life and to write voluminously 
in other fields of literature. 

His works may be classified as Essays, Speeches, Poems, 
The Indian Penal Code, and an unfinished History of Eng- 
land from the accession of James II. His historical and 
critical essays are accounted his best work. His History 
is detailed, pictorial, and diffusive; his critical essays lack 
that deep sympathy so essential to true interpretations, 
while his historical essays are developed to the point of per- 
fection. That he could produce so much excellent literature 
in his leisure hours is little short of the miraculous. 

Jeffrey wrote Macaulay after the latter's essay on Milton 
had appeared in the Review: "The more I think, the less I 
can conceive where you picked up that style." The stately 



INTRODUCTION 7 

eighteenth century prose had degenerated into a hard and 
uninteresting formaHsm. To Macaulay, more than to any 
other writer, should be given the credit of reviving and re- 
juvenating English prose. 

He himself appreciated the fact that his style was not far 
from bad form and should not be imitated by amateurs. 
Speaking of a young writer who evidently was trying to mimic 
him, Macaulay said: "A new member of the Review. There 
is an article which is a mocking-bird imitation of me. Some- 
how or other the mimic cannot catch the note, but many 
people would not be able to distinguish. But I am a very 
unsafe model. My manner is, I think, and the world thinks, 
on the whole, a good one; but it is very near to a bad manner 
indeed, and those characteristics of my style which are most 
easily copied are the most questionable." 

Macaulay overdoes the antithetical and balanced con- 
structions; his short, blunt sentences warrant John Morley 
in terming Macaulay's style an "unlovely staccato"; and 
he lacks the grace and beauty of movement so happily de- 
veloped by Addison, Stevenson, and many other prose 
writers. These faults are in a large measure due to his jour- 
nalistic and political life. He never went far beyond the 
plaudits of his audience, and never had the time to meditate 
on the wonderful fund of information he always had ready 
for use. He had very little taste for the finer sensibilities 
and abhorred metaphysical and psychological analyses. 
He was very positive in his beliefs and was oftentimes a 
victim of excessive exaggeration. Of his positivism Lord 
Melbourne is supposed to have said, "I wish I were as cock- 
sure of any one thing as Macaulay is of everything." A 
very fair specimen of his exaggeration is the following quota- 
tion: "What the Italian is to the Englishman, what the Hin- 
doo is to the Italian, what the Bengalee is to other Hindoos, 
that was Nuncomar" to other Bengalees." 

These faults, however, in no way overbalance the many 
excellent qualities of his style, and they are not so evident 
in his speeches as they are in his essays and histories. No 
prose writer has ever organized his productions more logically 
than has Macaula}^. His writings can be taken apart like 
some piece of mechanism and then each part restored to its 



8 INTRODUCTION 

place without difficulty, but chance to misplace an item 
and the writing jars like clashing machinery. This clear and 
definite outline carries the reader along with an interest born 
of a lucid understanding. 

This organization is very materially aided by the con- 
tinual flow of illustrations. For every idea he has there 
seem to be from one to a half dozen examples crowding 
upon him for priorit}^ Every illustration strikes home with 
convincing power, for it issues from a full mind and is aimed 
with a rifle-like accuracy. In his Second Speech on Copyright, 
when he presents examples to prove that Lord Mahon's 
bill placed a premium on the immature productions of au- 
thors, he uses so many illustrations that he feels he must 
apologize for their number and beg his colleagues not to 
think them presented because of any pedantry on his part. 
As the result of his splendid organization of materials and 
the concreteness of his language he was a forceful writer 
and a convincing speaker. 

In 1828 Lord Lyndhurst made Macaulay Commissioner 
of Bankruptcy. Two years later, on the nomination of 
Lord Lansdowne, he was elected Whig member for Calne. 
He immediately advocated the bill giving Jews the right of 
holding office, and in 1832 he eloquently pleaded the cause 
of a reform that abolished "rotten boroughs", one of which 
he had the honor to represent. The next year he labored 
for the passage of an anti-slavery bill that abolished negro 
slavery in the British colonies. This in a measure healed 
the wounds he had given his father by writing for the Review 
and by joining the ranks of the Whigs. In 1834 he was ap- 
pointed a member of the Supreme Council of India. Macau- 
lay returned to England in 1838, traveled on the continent 
for a year, and then returned to Parliament for Edinburgh. 
He served in this capacity almost continuously until he 
retired from politics in 1856. 

In 1857 the Queen, at the suggestion of Prime Minister 
Palmerston, made him a member of the House of Lords, 
with the title of Baron Macaulay of Rothley. He accepted 
the honor but took no part in the proceedings of the Upper 
House. His health was now failing rapidly and he realized 
that the time was all too short for the completion of his 



INTRODUCTION 9 

History. He held fast to life and work until the very end. 
At this time he wrote: "Today I wrote a pretty fair quantity 
of history. I should be glad to finish William before I go. 
But this is like the old excuses that were made to Charon." 

One winter evening, late in 1859, he died while sitting in 
an arm-chair in his library among his beloved books. A 
few days later England's greatest men bore him to West- 
minster Abbey and buried him in the Poets' Corner at the 
feet of the statue of Addison. Of his own life he wrote a 
short time before his death: "Well, I have had a happy life. 
I do not know that any one whom I have seen close has had 
a happier. Some things I regret; but who is better off.?" 

SOME FACTS RELATING TO MACAULAY'S PARLIAMENTARY 
EXPERIENCE 

After the peace of 181 5 the reform movement steadily 
grew until in 1822 the liberal party, under the leadership 
of George Canning, Huskisson, and Peel, came into complete 
control. Canning's death in 1827 was a severe blow to the 
reform element which was defeated that year. But in 1830 
the Whigs returned to power with a very substantial majority, 
and, during the seven years' reign of William IV, under the 
leadership of Lord Grey, they promulgated many radical 
reforms. 

The economic conditions of the times, showing the need 
of reforms, are concisely and adequately stated by J. Cotter 
Morison in the English Men of Letters ^^ series. "It is not easy 
for us to realize the conditions of England in Macaulay's 
youth. Though so little remote in point of time, and though 
still remembered by old men who are yet among us, the state 
of public affairs between the peace of 181 5 and the passing 
of the Reform Bill was so unlike anything to which we are 
accustomed, that a certain eflFort is required to make it 
present to the mind. It is not easy to conceive a state of 
things in which the country was covered by an army of 
common informers, whose business it was to denounce the 
non-payment of taxes, and share with the fisc the onerous 
fines imposed, often without a shadow of justice — in which 
marauders roamed at night under the command of General 



lO INTRODUCTION 

Ludd, and terrorized whole counties — when the Habeas 
Corpus Act was suspended, and in Suffolk, nightly, fires of 
incendiaries began to blaze in every district — when mobs 
of laborers assembled with flags bearing the motto Bread 
or Blood, and riots occurred in London, Nottingham, Leices- 
ter, and Derby, culminating in the massacre at Manchester — 
when at last the famous Six Acts were passed, which surren- 
dered the liberties of Englishmen into the hands of the Gov- 
ernment." 

Macaulay entered Parliament just in time to witness and 
take part in the great Reform Bill of 1832. His first speech 
on this Bill placed him in the foremost rank of orators and 
debaters of his time. The Speaker told him on this occasion 
that "in all his prolonged experience he had never seen the 
House in such a state of excitement.''" The tone of his 
speeches at this time is suggested by the following sentence 
from his fourth speech. "You may make the change tedious, 
you may make it violent, you may — God in his mercy for- 
bid — you may make it bloody, but avert it you cannot." 
His influence was immediately recognized by the Opposition, 
and Croker, one of the ablest debaters of his party, rose and 
spoke two hours in reply to Macaulay. Even Sir Robert 
Peel held Macaulay, from this time on, a foeman worthy of 
his fiercest assaults. 

After Macaulay's return from India in 1838 he was elected 
to Parliament as a member for Edinburgh. This return to 
political oflRce-holding was a distinct loss to literature. About 
this time he wrote, "I pine for liberty and ease, and freedom 
of speech and freedom of pen." This political activity caused 
him to postpone writing his History, but this was in a manner 
recompensed by his wonderful parliamentary victory in the 
copyright legislation. Of this triumph Gladstone says, 
"he arrested the successful progress of legislative measures, 
and slew them at a moment's notice, and by his single 
arm." 

On January 27, 1841, Sergeant Thomas Noon Talfourd 
presented a bill in the House of Commons to amend the law 
of copyright to provide protection for an author's work sixty 
years after his death. After a vigorous opposition on the 
part of Mr. Warburton and Mr. Hume, the house divided 



INTRODUCTION II 

and cast one hundred and forty-two votes for and thirty 
against Talfourd's measure. Macaulay was not present. 

Nine days later the bill came up for its second reading. 
After Talfourd had made his argument for the bill, Macaulay 
rose and delivered the first copyright speech. His eloquence 
converted thirteen of the original affirmative votes and the 
vote at this time stood thirty-eight ayes and forty-five noes. 

On March 4, 1842, Viscount Mahon introduced a bill 
providing twenty-five years of protection to the author 
after his death. The second copyright speech is a reply 
made to a masterful and effective speech by Lord Mahon 
in support of his proposition. This second speech of Macau- 
lay's was so effective that Sir Robert Peel assured Macaulay 
that he was a sincere convert to Macaulay's views on the 
copyright question. After some further debate, Macaulay 
moved to change "twenty-five years after death" to "forty- 
two years after publication or to death." Finally this amend- 
ment was carried by a vote of ninety-six ayes to seventeen 
noes. 

Macaulay's speeches are essays of the finest rhetoric and 
his wonderful power of illustration is not surpassed by Burke. 
He was a popular speaker, the simple announcement that 
Macaulay was going to speak being sufficient to fill the 
galleries. Of his manner of speaking we quote a paragraph 
from Lord Macaulay, His Life and His Writings by Charles H. 
Jones. 1 

"As to Macaulay's manner in speaking, interesting rem- 
iniscences have been furnished by the Parliamentary re- 
porters. One of these gentlemen, the reporter of the Times, 
says: *His action — the little that he used — was rather un- 
gainly. His voice was full and loud; but it had not the light 
and shade, or the modulation, found in practiced speakers. 
His speeches were most carefully prepared, and were repeated 
without the loss or omission of a single word.' Another 
writes: 'He used scarcely any action. He would turn round 
on his heel, and lean slightly on the table: but there was 
nothing like demonstrative or dramatic action. He spoke 
with great rapidity; and there was very little inflection in 

1 Copyright 1880, by D. Appleton & Company. Used by permission of the 
publishers. 



12 INTRODUCTION 

the voice, which, however, was not unmusical. It was some- 
what monotonous, and seldom rose or fell. The cadences 
were of small range. He spoke with very great fluency, and 
very little emphasis. It was the matter and language, rather 
than the manner, that took the audience captive.' Still 
a third says: 'Vehemence of thought, vehemence of language, 
vehemence of manner, were his chief characteristics. The 
listener might almost fancy he heard ideas and words gurgling 
in the speaker's throat for priority of utterance. There was 
nothing graduated or undulating about him. He plunged 
at once into the heart of the matter, and continued his loud 
resounding pace from beginning to end, without halt or pause. 
The vehemence and volume made Macaulay the terror of 
the reporters; and, when he engaged in a subject outside 
their ordinary experience, they were fairly nonplused by 
the display of names, and dates, and titles. He was not a 
long-winded speaker. In fact, his earnestness was so great 
that it would have failed under a very long effort. He had 
the faculty, possessed by every great orator, of compressing 
a great deal in a short space.'" 

COPYRIGHT 

Copyright is an exclusive right granted by the government 
to the owner of an intellectual production to multiply and 
dispose of copies of this production. Copyright is twofold 
in its meaning — statutory or copyright after publication, 
and common law or copyright before publication. Copy- 
right covers in a general way in all countries the following 
productions as defined by the Berne Convention, Septem- 
ber 5, 1887. "The expression 'literary and artistic works' 
comprehends books, pamphlets, and all other writings; dra- 
matic or dramatico-musical works, musical compositions with 
or without words; works of design, painting, sculpture, and en- 
graving; lithographs, illustrations, geographical charts; plans, 
sketches, and plastic works relative to geography, topog- 
raphy, architecture, or science in general; in fact, every 
production whatsoever in the literary, scientific, or artistic 
domain which can be published by any mode of impression 
or introduction." 



INTRODUCTION I3 

The owner of a "literary and artistic work'' may forfeit 
his right to the protection of the law by publishing his work 
and distributing it without securing a copyright. If the 
owner wishes to retain complete control of his production 
and does not wish to publish for distribution, the common 
law protects him adequately. Even the receiver of a letter 
has only a corporeal ownership and can, in case of using the 
contents for publication, be prosecuted by the writer, who 
retains an incorporeal right to his ideas. 

A copyright in the United States is granted for twenty- 
eight years in the first instance. At the end of this period 
the author, if living, or his widow or children can renew the 
copyright for twenty-eight additional years. In England it 
is forty-two years, or the period of the author's life and seven 
years additional, whichever is the longer period. 

Until 1679 authors in England were protected by a per- 
petual common-law right and a licensing system. After 
parliament revoked the licensing system in 1709 there was 
so much literary theft that it became necessary to legislate 
in behalf of authors. Parliament enacted a law granting an 
author exclusive rights of ownership for fourteen years from 
the date of publication. If the author still owned the pro- 
duction at the end of the fourteen years he had the right 
of renewal for another fourteen years. In 1774 the House 
of Lords declared that this statute nullified the common- 
law rights of the author. This ruling obtained until 18 14 
when the fourteen year period was extended to twenty- 
eight years, or until the author's death, if he lived for a longer 
time. The next important legislation in England's copy- 
right law was in 1841 and 1842 when Macaulay made his 
famous speeches. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Collected Works of Macaulay. Edited by Lady Trevelyan. 

8 vols. London. 
History of England, in Everyman s Library. E. P. Dutton, 

New York. 
Jones, Charles H., Lord Macaulay. D. Appleton & Company. 
MacGregor, Lord Macaulay. Cambridge University Press. 
Morison, J. C, Macaulay {English Men of Letters). Harper 

& Brothers. 
Stephen, Leslie, Article Macaulay in Dictionary of National 

Biography. 
Trevelyan, Sir G. O., Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay. 

2 vols. Harper & Brothers. 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 

Though, Sir,^ it is in some sense agreeable to approach a 
subject with which poHtical animosities have nothing to do, 
I offer myself to your notice with some reluctance. It is 
painful to me to take a course which may possibly be mis- 
understood or misrepresented as unfriendly to the interests 
of literature and literary men. It is painful to me, I will add, 
to oppose my honorable and learned friend " on a question 
which he has taken up from the purest motives, and which 
he regards with a parental interest. These feelings have 
hitherto kept me silent when the law of copyright has been 
under discussion. But as I am, on full consideration, satis- 
fied that the measure before us will, if adopted, inflict grievous 
injury on the public, without conferring any compensating 
advantage on men of letters, I think it my duty to avow that 
opinion and to defend it. 

The first thing to be done. Sir, is to settle on what prin- 
ciples the question is to be argued. Are we free to legislate 
for the public good, or are we not.? Is this a question of 
expediency, or is it a question of right.? Many of those who 
have written and petitioned against the existing state of 
things treat the question as one of right. The law of nature, 
according to them, gives to every man a sacred and in- 
defeasible property in his own ideas, in the fruits of his own 
reason and imagination. The legislature has indeed the 
power to take away this property, just as it has the power to 
pass an act of attainder for cutting off an innocent man's head 
without a trial. But, as such an act of attainder would be 
legal murder, so would an act invading the right of an author 
to his copy be, according to these gentlemen, legal robbery. 

15 



l6 MACAULAY 

Now, Sir, if this be so, let justice be done, cost what it 
may. I am not prepared, Hke my honorable and learned 
friend, to agree to a compromise between right and expe- 
diency, and to commit an injustice for the public convenience. 
But I must say that his theory soars far beyond the reach of 
my faculties. It is not necessary to go, on the present oc- 
casion, into a metaphysical inquiry about the origin of the 
right of property; and certainly nothing but the strongest 
necessity would lead me to discuss a subject so likely to be 
distasteful to the House. I agree, I own, with Paley^ in 
thinking that property is the creature of the law, and that 
the law which creates property can be defended only on 
this ground, that it is a law beneficial to mankind. But it 
is unnecessary to debate that point. For, even if I believed 
in a natural right of property, independent of utility and 
anterior to legislation, I should still deny that this right 
could survive the original proprietor. Few, I apprehend, 
even of those who have studied in the most mystical and 
sentimental schools of moral philosophy, will be disposed 
to maintain that there is a natural law of succession older 
and of higher authority than any human code. If there be, 
it is quite certain that we have abuses to reform much more 
serious than any connected with the question of copyright. 
For this natural law can be only one; and the modes of suc- 
cession in the Queen's dominions are twenty. To go no 
further than England, land generally descends to the eldest 
son. In Kent the sons share and share alike. In many 
districts the youngest takes the whole. Formerly a portion 
of a man's personal property was secured to his family; and 
it was only of the residue that he could dispose by will. Now 
he can dispose of the whole by will: but you limited his 
power, a few years ago, by enacting that the will should 
not be valid unless there were two witnesses. If a man dies 
intestate, his personal property generally goes according 
to the Statute of Distributions;" but there are local customs 
which modify that statute. Now which of all these systems 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 1 7 

Is conformed to the eternal standard of right ? Is it primogen- 
iture," or gavelkind," or borough English?" Are wills jure 
divino?^ Are the two witnesses jure divino? Might not the 
pars ratio7iabilis^ of our old law have a fair claim to be re- 
garded as of celestial institution? Was the Statute of Dis- 
tributions enacted in Heaven long before it was adopted by- 
Parliament? Or is it to Custom of York, or to Custom of 
London, that this preeminence belongs? Surely, Sir, even 
those who hold that there is a natural right of property 
must admit that rules prescribing the manner in which the 
effects of deceased persons shall be distributed are purely 
arbitrary, and originate altogether in the will of the legisla- 
ture. If so. Sir, there is no controversy between my honor- 
able and learned friend and myself as to the principles on 
which this question is to be argued. For the existing law 
gives an author copyright during his natural life; nor do I 
propose to invade that privilege, which I should, on the con- 
trary, be prepared to defend strenuously against any assail- 
ant. The only point in issue between us is, how long after 
an author's death the State shall recognize a copyright in 
his representatives and assigns; and it can, I think, hardly 
be disputed by any rational man that this is a point which 
the legislature is free to determine in the way which may 
appear to be most conducive to the general good. 

We may now, therefore, I think, descend from these high 
regions, where we are in danger of being lost in the clouds, 
to firm ground and clear light. Let us look at this question 
like legislators, and, after fairly balancing conveniences and 
inconveniences, pronounce between the existing law of copy- 
right and the law now proposed to us. The question of copy- 
right. Sir, like most questions of civil prudence, is neither 
black nor white, but gray. The system of copyright has 
great advantages and great disadvantages; and it is our 
business to ascertain what these are, and then to make an 

1 By divine law. 

2 The portion of a man's goods which legally goes to his wife and children. 



1 8 MACAU LAY 

arrangement under which the advantages may be as far as 
possible secured, and the disadvantages as far as possible 
excluded. The charge which I bring against my honorable 
and learned friend's bill is this, that it leaves the advantages 
nearly what they are at present, and increases the disadvan- 
tages at least fourfold. 

The advantages arising from a system of copyright are 
obvious. It is desirable that we should have a supply of 
good books; we cannot have such a supply unless men of 
letters are liberally remunerated; and the least objectionable 
way of remunerating them is by means of copyright. You 
cannot depend for literary instruction and amusement on the 
leisure of men occupied in the pursuits of active life. Such 
men may occasionally produce compositions of great merit. 
But you must not look to such men for works which require 
deep meditation and long research. Works of that kind 
you can expect only from persons who make literature the 
business of their lives. Of these persons few will be found 
among the rich and the noble. The rich and the noble are 
not impelled to intellectual exertion by necessity. They 
may be impelled to intellectual exertion by the desire of 
distinguishing themselves, or by the desire of benefiting 
the community. But it is generally within these walls that 
they seek to signalize themselves and to serve their fellow 
creatures. Both their ambition and their public spirit, in 
a country like this, naturally take a political turn. It is, 
then, on men whose profession is literature, and whose private 
means are not ample, that you must rely for a supply of 
valuable books. Such men must be remunerated for their 
literary labor. And there are only two ways in which they 
can be remunerated. One of those ways is patronage; the 
other is copyright. 

There have been times in which men of letters looked, 
not to the public, but to the Government, or to a few great 
men, for the reward of their exertions. It was thus in the 
time of Maecenas and Pollio" at Rome, of the Medici" at 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 19 

Florence, of Louis the Fourteenth" in France, of Lord Hali- 
fax" and Lord Oxford" in this country. Now, Sir, I well 
know that there are cases in which it is fit and graceful, nay, 
in which it is a sacred duty, to reward the merits or to re- 
lieve the distresses of men of genius by the exercise of this 
species of liberality. But these cases are exceptions. I can 
conceive no system more fatal to the integrity and independ- 
ence of literary men than one under which they should be 
taught to look for their daily bread to the favor of ministers 
and nobles. I can conceive no system more certain to turn 
those minds which are formed by nature to be the blessings 
and ornaments of our species into public scandals and pests. 
We have, then, only one resource left. We must betake 
ourselves to copyright, be the inconveniences of copyright 
what they may. Those inconveniences, in truth, are neither 
few nor small. Copyright is monopoly, and produces all 
the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to 
monopoly. My honorable and learned friend talks very 
contemptuously of those who are led away by the theory 
that monopoly makes things dear. That monopoly makes 
things dear is certainly a theory, as all the great truths which 
have been established by the experience of all ages and na- 
tions, and which are taken for granted in all reasonings, 
may be said to be theories. It is a theory in the same sense 
in which it is a theory that day and night follow each other, 
that lead is heavier than water, that bread nourishes, that 
arsenic poisons, that alcohol intoxicates. If, as my honorable 
and learned friend seems to think, the whole world is in the 
wrong on this point, if the real effect of monopoly is to make 
articles good and cheap, why does he stop short in his career 
of change? Why does he limit the operation of so salutary 
a principle to sixty years? Why does he consent to anything 
short of a perpetuity? He told us that in consenting to 
anything short of a perpetuity he was making a compromise 
between extreme right and expediency. But, if his opinion 
about monopoly be correct, extreme right and expediency 



20 MACAU LAY 

would coincide. Or rather, why should we not restore the 
monopoly of the East India trade to the East India Com- 
pany?" Why should we not revive all those old monopolies 
which, in Elizabeth's reign," galled our fathers so severely 
that, maddened by intolerable wrong, they opposed to their 
sovereign a resistance before which her haughty spirit 
quailed for the first and for the last time? Was it the cheap- 
ness and excellence of commodities that then so violently 
stirred the indignation of the English people? I believe. Sir, 
that I may safely take it for granted that the effect of monop- 
oly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, 
and to make them bad. And I may with equal safety chal- 
lenge my honorable friend to find out any distinction between 
copyright and other privileges of the same kind; any reason 
why a monopoly of books should produce an effect directly 
the reverse of that which was produced by the East India 
Company's monopoly of tea, or by Lord Essex's" monopoly 
of sweet wines. Thus, then, stands the case. It is good 
that authors should be remunerated; and the least excep- 
tionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet 
monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must 
submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer 
than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good. 

Now, I will not affirm that the existing law is perfect, that 
it exactly hits the point at which the monopoly ought to 
cease; but this I confidently say, that the existing law is 
very much nearer that point than the law proposed by my 
honorable and learned friend. For consider this: the evil 
effects of the monopoly are proportioned to the length of its 
duration. But the good effects for the sake of which we bear 
with the evil effects are by no means proportioned to the 
length of its duration. A monopoly of sixty years produces 
twice as much evil as a monopoly of thirty years, and thrice 
as much evil as a monopoly of twenty years. But it is by 
no means the fact that a posthumous monopoly of sixty years 
gives to an author thrice as much pleasure and thrice as 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 21 

strong a motive as a posthumous monopoly of twenty years. 
On the contrary, the difference is so small as to be hardly 
perceptible. We all know how faintly we are affected by 
the prospect of very distant advantages, even when they are 
advantages which we may reasonably hope that we shall 
ourselves enjoy. But an advantage that is to be enjoyed 
more than half a century after we are dead, by somebody, 
we know not by whom, perhaps by somebody unborn, by 
somebody utterly unconnected with us, is really no motive 
at all to action. It is very probable that in the course of 
some generations land in the unexplored and unmapped 
heart of the Australasian continent will be very valuable. 
But there is none of us who would lay down five pounds for 
a whole province in the heart of the Australasian continent. 
We know that neither we, nor anybody for whom we care, 
will ever receive a farthing of rent from such a province. 
And a man is very little moved by the thought that in the 
year 2000 or 2100, somebody who claims through him will 
employ more shepherds than Prince Esterhazy," and will 
have the finest house and gallery of pictures at Victoria or 
Sydney. Now, this is the sort of boon which my honorable 
and learned friend holds out to authors. Considered as a 
boon to them, it is a mere nullity; but, considered as an im- 
post on the public, it is no nullity, but a very serious and 
pernicious reality. I will take an example. Dr. Johnson " 
died fifty-six years ago. If the law were what my honorable 
and learned friend wishes to make it, somebody would now 
have the monopoly of Dr. Johnson's works. Who that some- 
body w^ould be it is impossible to say; but we may venture 
to guess. I guess, then, that it would have been some book- 
seller, who was the assign of another bookseller, who was the 
grandson of a third bookseller, who had bought the copy- 
right from Black Frank, the doctor's servant and residuary 
legatee,^ in 1785 or 1786. Now, would the knowledge that 

1 The legatee to whom is devised the part of a testator's estate which re- 
mains after all debts and other devises and bequests are satisfied. 



22 MACAULAY 

this copyright would exist in 1841 have been a source of 
gratification to Johnson? Would it have stimulated his 
exertions? Would it have once drawn him out of his bed 
before noon? Would it have once cheered him under a fit of 
the spleen? Would it have induced him to give us one more 
allegory, one more life of a poet, one more imitation of Ju- 
venal?" I firmly believe not. I firmly believe that a hundred 
years ago, when he was writing our^ debates for the Gentle- 
man s Magazine, he would very much rather have had two- 
pence to buy a plate of shin of beef at a cook's shop under- 
ground. Considered as a reward to him, the difference 
between a twenty years' term and sixty years' term of post- 
humous copyright would have been nothing or next to noth- 
ing. But is the difference nothing to us ? I can buy Rasselas " 
for sixpence; I might have had to give five shillings for it. 
I can buy the Dictionary, the entire genuine Dictionary, for 
two guineas, perhaps for less; I might have had to give five 
or six guineas for it. Do I grudge this to a man like Dr. John- 
son? Not at all. Show me that the prospect of this boon 
roused him to any vigorous effort, or sustained his spirits 
under depressing circumstances, and I am quite willing to 
pay the price of such an object, heavy as that price is. But 
what I do complain of is that my circumstances are to be 
worse, and Johnson's none the better; that I am to give five 
pounds for what to him was not worth a farthing. 

The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers 
for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is 
an exceedingly bad one; it is a tax on one of the most innocent 
and most salutary of human pleasures; and never let us 
forget that a tax on innocent pleasures is a premium on 
vicious pleasures. I admit, however, the necessity of giving 
a bounty to genius and learning. In order to give such a 
bounty, I willingly submit even to this severe and burden- 
some tax. Nay, I am ready to increase the tax, if it can be 
shown that by so doing I should proportionally increase 
1 That is, Parliamentary. 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 23 

the bounty. My complaint is, that my honorable and learned 
friend doubles, triples, quadruples the tax, and makes scarcely 
any perceptible addition to the bounty. Why, Sir, what is 
the additional amount of taxation which would have been 
levied on the public for Dr. Johnson's works alone, if my 
honorable and learned friend's bill had been the law of the 
land.? I have not data sufficient to form an opinion. But I 
am confident that the taxation on his Dictionary alone would 
have amounted to many thousands of pounds. In reckoning 
the whole additional sum which the holders of his copyrights 
would have taken out of the pockets of the public during 
the last half-century at twenty thousand pounds, I feel 
satisfied that I very greatly underrate it. Now, I again say 
that I think it but fair that we should pay twenty thousand 
pounds in consideration of twenty thousand pounds' worth 
of pleasure and encouragement received by Dr. Johnson. 
But I think it very hard that we should pay twenty thou- 
sand pounds for what he would not have valued at five 
shillings. 

My honorable and learned friend dwells on the claims 
of the posterity of great writers. Undoubtedly, Sir, it would 
be very pleasing to see a descendant of Shakespeare living 
in opulence on the fruits of his great ancestor's genius. A 
house maintained in splendor by such a patrimony would 
be a more interesting and striking object than Blenheim" is 
to us, or than Strathfieldsaye** will be to our children. But, 
unhappily, it is scarcely possible that, under any system, 
such a thing can come to pass. My honorable and learned 
friend does not propose that copyright shall descend to the 
eldest son, or shall be bound up by irrevocable entail. It is 
to be merely personal property. It is therefore highly im- 
probable that it will descend during sixty years or half that 
term from parent to child. The chance is that more people 
than one will have an interest in it. They will in all proba-. 
bility sell it and divide the proceeds. The price which a book- 
seller will give for it will bear no proportion to the sum which 



24 MACAU LAY 

he will afterwards draw from the public, if his speculation 
proves successful. He will give little, if anything, more for a 
term of sixty years than for a term of thirty or five-and- 
twenty. The present value of a distant advantage is always 
small; but, when there is great room to doubt whether a 
distant advantage will be any advantage at all, the present 
value sinks to almost nothing. Such is the inconstancy of the 
public taste that no sensible man will venture to pronounce, 
with confidence, what the sale of any book published in our 
days will be in the years between 1890 and 1900. The whole 
fashion of thinking and writing has often undergone a change 
in a much shorter period than that to which my honorable 
and learned friend would extend posthumous copyright. 
What would have been considered the best literary property 
in the earlier part of Charles the Second's" reign.? I imagine 
Cowley's^ Poems. Overleap sixty years, and you are in 
the generation of which Pope" asked, "Who now reads 
Cowley?'* What works were ever expected with more im- 
patience by the public than those of Lord Bolingbroke," 
which appeared, I think, in 1754.? In 1814, no bookseller 
would have thanked you for the copyright of them all, if 
you had offered it to him for nothing. What would Pater- 
noster Row" give now for the copyright of Hayley's^ 
Triumphs of Temper, so much admired within the memory 
of many people still living.? I say, therefore, that, from the 
very nature of literary property, it will almost always pass 
away from an author's family; and I say that the price given 
for it to the family will bear a very small proportion to the 
tax which the purchaser, if his speculation turns out well, 
will in the course of a long series of years levy on the 
public. 

If, Sir, I wished to find a strong and perfect illustration 
of the effects which I anticipate from long copyright, I should 
select, — my honorable and learned friend will be surprised, — 
I should select the case of Milton's granddaughter. As often 
as this bill has been under discussion, the fate of Milton's 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 25 

granddaughter has been brought forward by the advocates 
of monopoly. My honorable and learned friend has repeat- 
edly told the story with great eloquence and effect. He has 
dilated on the sufferings, on the abject poverty, of this ill- 
fated woman, the last of an illustrious race. He tells us that, 
in the extremity of her distress, Garrick" gave her a benefit," 
that Johnson wrote a prologue, and that the public contrib- 
uted some hundreds of pounds. Was it fit, he asks, that 
she should receive, in this eleemosynary^ form, a small 
portion of what was in truth a debt? Why, he asks, instead 
of obtaining a pittance from charity, did she not live in com- 
fort and luxury on the proceeds of the sale of her ancestor's 
works.? But, Sir, will my honorable and learned friend tell 
me that this event, which he has so often and so pathetically 
described, was caused by the shortness of the term of copy- 
right.? Why, at that time, the duration of copyright was 
longer than even he, at present, proposes to make it. The 
monopoly lasted, not sixty years, but forever. At the time 
at which Milton's granddaughter asked charity, Milton's 
works were the exclusive property of a bookseller. Within 
a few months of the day on which the benefit was given at 
Garrick's theatre, the holder of the copyright of Paradise 
Lost — I think it was Tonson" — applied to the Court of 
Chancery for an injunction against a bookseller who had pub- 
lished a cheap edition of the great epic poem, and obtained 
the injunction. The representation of Comus was, if I re- 
member rightly, in 1750; the injunction in 1752. Here, then, 
is a perfect illustration of the effect of long copyright. Mil- 
ton's works are the property of a single publisher. Every- 
body who wants them must buy them at Tonson's shop, and 
at Tonson's price. Whoever attempts to undersell Tonson 
is harassed with legal proceedings. Thousands who would 
gladly possess a copy of Paradise Lost must forego that great 
enjoyment. And what, in the mean time, is the situation 
of the only person for whom we can suppose that the author, 
1 Pertaining to charity or alms. 



26 MACAULAY 

protected at such a cost to the pubhc, was at all interested? 
She is reduced to utter destitution. Milton's works are under 
a monopoly. Milton's granddaughter is starving. The 
reader is pillaged; but the writer's family is not enriched. 
Society is taxed doubly. It has to give an exorbitant price 
for the poems; and it has at the same time to give alms to 
the only surviving descendant of the poet. 

But this is not all. I think it right, Sir, to call the 
attention of the House to an evil, which is perhaps more 
to be apprehended when an author's copyright remains 
in the hands of his family, than when it is transferred to 
booksellers. I seriously fear that, if such a measure as this 
should be adopted, many valuable works will be either totally 
suppressed or grievously mutilated. I can prove that this 
danger is not chimerical; and I am quite certain that, if the 
danger be real, the safeguards which my honorable and 
learned friend has devised are altogether nugatory. That 
the danger is not chimerical may easily be shown. Most 
of us, I am sure, have known persons who, very erroneously 
as I think, but from the best motives, would not choose to 
reprint Fielding's'* novels, or Gibbon's" History of the De- 
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Some gentlemen may 
perhaps be of opinion that it would be as well if Tom Jones 
and Gibbon's History were never reprinted. I will not, then, 
dwell on these or similar cases. I will take cases respecting 
which it is not likely that there will be any difference of opin- 
ion here; cases, too, in which the danger of which I now 
speak is not matter of supposition, but matter of fact. Take 
Richardson's" novels. Whatever I may, on the present 
occasion, think of my honorable and learned friend's judg- 
ment as a legislator, I must always respect his judgment as a 
critic. He will, I am sure, say that Richardson's novels are 
among the most valuable, among the most original, works 
in our language. No writings have done more to raise the 
fame of English genius in foreign countries. No writings 
are more deeply pathetic. No writings, those of Shakespeare 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 27 

excepted, show more profound knowledge of the human 
heart. As to their moral tendency, I can cite the most 
respectable testimony. Dr. Johnson describes Richardson 
as one who had taught the passions to move at the command 
of virtue. My dear and honored friend, Mr. Wilberforce," 
in his celebrated religious treatise, when speaking of the 
unchristian tendency of the fashionable novels of the eight- 
eenth century, distinctly excepts Richardson from the cen- 
sure. Another excellent person, whom I can never mention 
without respect and kindness. Mistress Hannah More,'^ 
often declared in conversation, and has declared in one of 
her published poems, that she first learned from the writings 
of Richardson those principles of piety by which her life 
was guided. I may safely say that books celebrated as 
works of art through the whole civilized world, and praised 
for their moral tendency by Dr. Johnson, by Mr. Wilberforce, 
by Mistress Hannah More, ought not to be suppressed. Sir, 
it is my firm belief that, if the law had been what my honor- 
able and learned friend proposes to make it, they would have 
been suppressed. I remember Richardson's grandson well; 
he was a clergyman in the city of London; he was a most 
upright and excellent man; but he had conceived a strong 
prejudice against works of fiction. He thought all novel- 
reading not only frivolous but sinful. He said, — this I 
state on the authority of one of his clerical brethren who 
is now a bishop, — he said that he had never thought it right 
to read one of his grandfather's books. Suppose, Sir, that 
the law had been what my honorable and learned friend 
would make it. Suppose that the copyright of Richardson's 
novels had descended, as might well have been the case, to 
this gentleman. I firmly believe that he would have thought 
it sinful to give them a wide circulation. I firmly believe 
that he would not for a hundred thousand pounds have 
deliberately done what he thought sinful. He would not 
have reprinted them. And what protection does my honor- 
able and learned friend give to the public in such a case.? 



28 MACAU LAY 

Why, Sir, what he proposes is this: if a book is not reprinted 
during five years, any person who wishes to reprint it may 
give notice in the London Gazette: the advertisement must 
be repeated three times: a year must elapse; and then, if 
the proprietor of the copyright does not put forth a new edi- 
tion, he loses his exclusive privilege. Now, what protection 
is this to the public? What is a new edition? Does the law 
define the number of copies that make an edition? Does it 
limit the price of a copy? Are twelve copies on large paper, 
charged at thirty guineas each, an edition ? It has been usual, 
when monopolies have been granted, to prescribe numbers 
and to limit prices. But I do not find that my honorable 
and learned friend proposes to do so in the present case. 
And, without some such provision, the security which he 
offers is manifestly illusory. It is my conviction that, under 
such a system as that which he recommends to us, a 
copy of Clarissa^ would have been as rare as an Aldus'* or a 
Caxton." 

I will give another instance. One of the most instructive, 
interesting, and delightful books in our language is Boswell's 
Life of Johnson. Now it is well known that Boswell's eldest 
son considered this book, considered the whole relation of 
Boswell to Johnson, as a blot in the escutcheon of the family. 
He thought, not perhaps altogether without reason, that 
his father had exhibited himself in a ludicrous and degrading 
light. And thus he became so sore and irritable that at last 
he could not bear to hear the Life of Johnson mentioned. 
Suppose that the law had been what my honorable and 
learned friend wishes to make it. Suppose that the copy- 
right of Boswell's Life of Johnson had belonged, as it well 
might, during sixty years, to Boswell's eldest son. What 
would have been the consequence? An unadulterated copy 
of the finest biographical work in the world would have 
been as scarce as the first edition of Camden's Britannia.^ 

These are strong cases. I have shown you that, if the law 
had been what you are now going to make it, the finest 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 29 

prose work of fiction in the language, the finest biographical 
work in the language, would very probably have been sup- 
pressed. But I have stated my case weakly. The books 
which I have mentioned are singularly inoffensive books, 
books not touching on any of those questions which drive 
even wise men beyond the bounds of wisdom. There are 
books of a very different kind, books which are the rallying 
points of great political and religious parties. What is likely 
to happen if the copyright of one of these books should by 
descent or transfer come into the possession of some hostile 
zealot? I will take a single instance. It is only fifty years 
since John Wesley" died, and all his works, if the law had 
been what my honorable and learned friend wishes to make 
it, would now have been the property of some person or other. 
The sect founded by Wesley is the most numerous, the wealth- 
iest, the most powerful, the most zealous of sects. In every 
parliamentary election it is a matter of the greatest impor- 
tance to obtain the support of the Wesleyan Methodists. 
Their numerical strength is reckoned by hundreds of thou- 
sands. They hold the memory of their founder in the greatest 
reverence; and not without reason, for he was unquestion- 
ably a great and a good man. To his authority they con- 
stantly appeal. His works are in their eyes of the highest 
value. His doctrinal writings they regard as containing the 
best system of theology ever deduced from Scripture. His 
journals, interesting even to the common reader, are pecu- 
liarly interesting to the Methodist: for they contain the 
whole history of that singular polity which, weak and despised 
in its beginning, is now, after the lapse of a century, so strong, 
so flourishing, and so formidable. The hymns to which he 
gave his imprimatur are a most important part of the public 
worship of his followers. Now, suppose that the copyright 
of these works should belong to some person who holds the 
memory of Wesley and the doctrines and discipline of the 
Methodists in abhorrence. There are many such persons. 
The Ecclesiastical Courts are at this very time sitting on the 



30 MACAULAY 

case of a clergyman of the Established Church who refused 
Christian burial to a child baptized by a Methodist preacher. 
I took up the other day a work which is considered as among 
the most respectable organs of a large and growing party 
in the Church of England, and there I saw John Wesley 
designated as a forsworn priest. Suppose that the works 
of Wesley were suppressed. Why, Sir, such a grievance 
would be enough to shake the foundations of government. 
Let gentlemen who are attached to the Church reflect for a 
moment what their feelings would be if the Book of Common 
Prayer were not to be reprinted for thirty or forty years, 
if the price of a Book of Common Prayer were run up to 
five or ten guineas. And then let them determine whether 
they will pass a law under which it is possible, under which 
it is probable, that so intolerable a wrong may be done to 
some sect consisting perhaps of half a million of persons. 

I am so sensible. Sir, of the kindness with which the House 
has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. I will 
only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and 
should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calcu- 
lated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, 
there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable 
kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of 
game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many 
absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the 
smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical 
booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public 
feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded 
as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving 
men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by 
the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No 
tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with 
such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feel- 
ing is at an end. Men very different from the present race 
of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable 
monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly em- 



FIRST SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 3 1 

ployed in the violation of the law. Every art will be em- 
ployed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be 
in the plot. On which side, indeed, should the public sym- 
pathy be when the question is whether some book as popular 
as Robinson Cmsoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in 
every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries 
of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a book- 
seller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain 
for the copyright with the author when in great distress? 
Remember, too, that, when once it ceases to be considered as 
wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person 
can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom 
makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which 
now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new 
copyright which you are about to create. And- you will 
find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints 
on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a 
great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent 
men from pillaging and defrauding the living. If I saw. Sir, 
any probability that this bill could be so amended in the 
Committee that my objections might be removed, I would 
not divide the House" in this stage. But I am so fully 
convinced that no alteration which would not seem insup- 
portable to my honorable and learned friend could render 
his measure supportable to me, that I must move, though 
with regret, that this bill be read a second time" this day 
six months. 



SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 

Mr. Greene,"— 

I HAVE been amused and gratified by the remarks which 
my noble friend" has made on the arguments by which I ; 
prevailed on the last House of Commons to reject the bill j 
introduced by a very able and accomplished man, Mr. Ser- ^' 
geant Talfourd. My noble friend has done me a high and 
rare honor. For this is, I believe, the first occasion on which 
a speech made in one Parliament has been answered in 
another. I should not find it difficult to vindicate the sound- 
ness of the reasons which I formerly urged, to set them in 
a clearer light, and to fortify them by additional facts. 
But it seems to me that we had better discuss the bill which 
is now on our table than the bill which was there fourteen 
months ago. Glad I am to find that there is a very wide 
difference between the two bills, and that my noble friend, 
though he has tried to refute my arguments, has acted as 
if he had been convinced by them. I objected to the term 
of sixty years as far too long. My noble friend has cut that 
term down to twenty-five years. I warned the House that, 
under the provisions of Mr. Sergeant Talfourd's bill, valuable 
works might not improbably be suppressed by the representa- 
tives of authors. My noble friend has prepared a clause 
which, as he thinks, will guard against that danger. I will 
not, therefore, waste the time of the Committee by debating 
points which he has conceded, but will proceed at once to 
the proper business of this evening. 

Sir, I have no objection to the principle of my noble 
friend's bill. Indeed, I had no objection to the principle 
of the bill of last year. I have long thought that the term 



SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 33 

of copyright ought to be extended. When Mr. Sergeant 
Talfourd moved for leave to bring in his bill, I did not oppose 
the motion. Indeed, I meant to vote for the second reading, 
and to reserve what I had to say for the Committee. But 
the learned Sergeant left me no choice. He, in strong lan- 
guage, begged that nobody who was disposed to reduce the 
term of sixty years would divide with him. *'Do not," he 
said, **give me your support if all that you mean to grant 
to men of letters is a miserable addition of fourteen or fifteen 
years to the present term. I do not wish for such support; 
I despise it." Not wishing to obtrude on the learned Ser- 
geant a support which he despised, I had no course left but 
to take the sense of the House on the second reading. The 
circumstances are now different. My noble friend's bill 
is not at present a good bill; but it may be improved into a 
very .good bill; nor will he, I am persuaded, withdraw it if it 
should be so improved. He and I have the same object in 
view; but we differ as to the best mode of attaining that 
object. We are equally desirous to extend the protection 
now enjoyed by writers. In what way it may be extended 
with most benefit to them and with least inconvenience to 
the public, is the question. 

The present state of the law is this. The author of a work 
has a certain copyright in that work for a term of twenty- 
eight years. If he should live more than twenty-eight years 
after the publication of the work, he retains the copyright 
to the end of his life. 

My noble friend does not propose to make any addition 
to the term of twenty-eight years. But he proposes that 
the copyright shall last twenty-five years after the author's 
death. Thus my noble friend makes no addition to that term 
which is certain, but makes a very large addition to that 
term which is uncertain. 

My plan is different. I would make no addition to the 
uncertain term; but I would make a large addition to the 
certain term. I propose to add fourteen years to the twenty- 



34 MACAULAY 

eight years which the law now allows to an author. His 
copyright will, in this way, last till his death, or till the ex- 
piration of forty-two years, whichever shall first happen. 
And I think that I shall be able to prove to the satisfaction 
of the Committee that my plan will be more beneficial 
to literature and to literary men than the plan of my noble 
friend. 

It must surely. Sir, be admitted that the protection which 
we give to books ought to be distributed as evenly as possible, 
that every book should have a fair share of that protection, 
and no book more than a fair share. It would evidently 
be absurd to put tickets into a wheel, with different numbers 
marked upon them, and to make writers draw, one a term 
of twenty-eight years, another a term of fifty, another a 
term of ninety. And yet this sort of lottery is what my 
noble friend proposes to establish. I know that we cannot 
altogether exclude chance. You have two terms of copyright, 
one certain, the other uncertain; and we cannot, I admit, 
get rid of the uncertain term. It is proper, no doubt, that 
an author's copyright should last during his life. But, Sir, 
though we cannot altogether exclude chance, we can very 
much diminish the share which chance must have in dis- 
tributing the recompense which we wish to give to genius 
and learning. By every addition which we make to the cer- 
tain term, we diminish the influence of chance; by every ad- 
dition which we make to the uncertain term, we increase the 
influence of chance. I shall make myself best understood 
by putting cases. Take two eminent female writers who 
died within our own memory, Madame D'Arblay" and 
Miss Austen." As the law now stands. Miss Austen's charm- 
ing novels would have only from twenty-eight to thirty-three 
years of copyright. For that extraordinary woman died 
young; she died before her genius was fully appreciated by 
the world. Madame D'Arblay outlived the whole generation 
to which she belonged. The copyright of her celebrated 
novel, Evelina, lasted, under the present law, sixty-two years. 



SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 35 

Surely this inequality is sufficiently great; sixty-two years 
of copyright for Evelina, only twenty-eight for Persuasion. 
But to my noble friend this inequality seems not great 
enough. He proposes to add twenty-five years to Madame 
D'Arblay's term, and not a single day to Miss Austen's term. 
He would give to Persuasion a copyright of only twenty- 
eight years, as at present, and to Evelina a copyright more 
than three times as long, a copyright of eighty-seven years. 
Now, is this reasonable.'' See, on the other hand, the opera- 
tion of my plan. I make no addition at all to Madame 
D'Arblay's term of sixty-two years, which is in my opinion, 
quite long enough; but I extend Miss Austen's term to forty- 
two years, which is, in my opinion, not too much. You see, 
Sir, that at present, chance has too much sway in this matter; 
that at present the protection which the State gives to letters 
is very unequally given. You see that, if my noble friend's 
plan be adopted, more will be left to chance than under the 
present system, and you will have such inequalities as are 
unknown under the present system. You see also that, 
under the system which I recommend, we shall have, not 
perfect certainty, not perfect equality, but much less uncer- 
tainty and inequality than at present. 

But this is not all. My noble friend's plan is not merely 
to institute a lottery in which some writers will draw prizes 
and some will draw blanks. It is much worse than this. His 
lottery is so contrived that, in the vast majority of cases, 
the blanks will fall to the best books, and the prizes to books 
of inferior merit. 

Take Shakespeare. My noble friend gives a longer pro- 
tection than I should give to Love's Labor s Lost, and Pericles, 
Prince of Tyre; but he gives a shorter protection than I should 
give to Othello and Macbeth. 

Take Milton. Milton died in 1674. The copyrights of 
Milton's great works would, according to my noble friend's 
plan, expire in 1699. Conius appeared in 1634; the Paradise 
Lost in 1668. To Comus, then, my noble friend would give 



36 MACAULAY 

sixty-five years of copyright, and to the Paradise Lost only 
thirty-one years. Is that reasonable? Comus is a noble 
poem; but who would rank it with the Paradise Lost? My 
plan would give forty-two years both to the Paradise Lost 
and to Comus. 

Let us pass on from Milton to Dryden." My noble friend 
would give more than sixty years of copyright to Dryden's 
worst works; to the encomiastic ^ verses on Oliver Cromwell, 
to The Wild Gallant, to The Rival Ladies, to other wretched 
pieces as bad as anything written by Flecknoe" or Settle;" 
but for Theodore and Honoria, for Tancred and Sigismunda, 
for Cymon and Iphigenia, for Palamon and Arcite, for Alexan- 
der s Feast, my noble friend thinks a copyright of twenty- 
eight years sufficient. Of all Pope's works, that to which 
my noble friend would give the largest measure of protection 
is the volum.e oi Pastorals, remarkable only as the production 
of a boy. Johnson's first work was a translation of A Book of 
Travels in Abyssinia, published in 1735. It was so poorly 
executed that in his later years he did not like to hear it 
mentioned. Boswell once picked up a copy of it, and told 
his friend that he had done so. "Do not talk about it," said | 
Johnson; "it is a thing to be forgotten." To this performance • 
my noble friend would give protection during the enormous 
term of seventy-five years. To the Lives of the Poets he w^ould '\ 
give protection during about thirty years. Well; take Henry 
Fielding; it matters not whom I take, but take Fielding. 
His early works are read only by the curious, and would 
not be read even by the curious but for the fame which he ac- 
quired in the later part of his life by works of a very different 
kind. What is the value of The Temple Beau, of The In- 
triguing Chamber-maid, of half a dozen other plays of which 
few gentlemen have even heard the names.? Yet to these 
worthless pieces my noble friend would give a term of copy- 
right longer by more than twenty years than that which he 
would give to Tom Jones and Amelia. . 

1 Eulogistic. 11 



I SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT -3)7 

Go on to Burke." His little tract, entitled The Vindica- 
tion of Natural Society, is certainly not without merit; but 
it would not be remembered in our days if it did not bear 
the name of Burke. To this tract my noble friend would give 
a copyright of near seventy years. But to the great work 
on the French Revolution, to the Appeal from the New to the 
Old Whigs, to the letters on the Regicide Peace, he would give 
a copyright of thirty years or little more. 

And, Sir, observe that I am not selecting here and there 
extraordinary instances in order to make up the semblance of 
a case. I am taking the greatest names of our literature in 
chronological order. Go to other nations; go to remote ages; 
you will still find the general rule the same. There was no 
copyright at Athens or Rome; but the history of the Greek 
and Latin literature illustrates my argument quite as well 
as if copyright had existed in ancient times. Of all the plays 
of Sophocles," the one to which the plan of my noble friend 
would have given the most scanty recompense would have 
been that wonderful masterpiece, the (Edipus at Colonos. 
Who would class together the Speech of Demosthenes" 
against his guardians, and the Speech for the Crown? My 
noble friend, indeed, would not class them together. For to 
the Speech against the Guardians he would give a copyright 
of near seventy years; and to the incomparable Speech for 
the Crown a copyright of less than half that length. Go to 
Rome. My noble friend would give more than twice as long 
a term to Cicero's" juvenile declamation in defense of Ros- 
cius Amerinus" as to the Second Philippic. Go to France. 
My noble friend would give a far longer term to Racine's" 
Frhes Ennemis than to Athalie, and to Moli^re's" Etourdi 
than to Tartuffe. Go to Spain. My noble friend would give 
a longer term to forgotten works of Cervantes," works which 
nobody now reads, than to Don Quixote. Go to Germany. 
According to my noble friend's plan, of all the works of 
Schiller," The Robbers would be the most favored; of all the 
works of Goethe," the Sorrows of Werther would be the most 



38 MACAULAY 

favored. I thank the Committee for listening so kindly 
to this long enumeration. Gentlemen will perceive, I am sure, 
that it is not from pedantry that I mention the names of so 
many books and authors. But just as, in our debates on civil 
affairs, we constantly draw illustrations from civil history, 
we must, in a debate about literary property, draw our il- 
lustrations from literary history. Now, Sir, I have, I think, 
shown from literary history that the effect of my noble friend's 
plan would be to give to crude and imperfect works, to third- 
rate and fourth-rate works, a great advantage over the high- 
est productions of genius. It is impossible to account for the 
facts which I have laid before you by attributing them to ^ 
mere accident. Their number is too great, their character 
too uniform. We must seek for some other explanation; j 
and we shall easily find one. ; 

It is the law of our nature that the mind shall attain its 
full power by slow degrees; and this is especially true of the 
most vigorous minds. Young men, no doubt, have often 
produced works of great merit; but it would be impossible 
to name any writer of the first order whose juvenile perform- 
ances were his best. That all the most valuable books of 
history, of philology, of physical and metaphysical science, 
of divinity, of political economy, have been produced by men 
of mature years, will hardly be disputed. 

The case may not be quite so clear as respects works of 
the imagination. And yet I know of no work of the imagina- 
tion of the very highest class that was ever, in any age or 
country, produced by a man under thirty-five. Whatever 
powers a youth may have received from nature, it is impossi- 
ble that his taste and judgment can be ripe, that his mind 
can be richly stored with images, that he can have observed 
the vicissitudes of life, that he can have studied the nicer 
shades of character. How, as MarmonteP very sensibly 
said, is a person to paint portraits who has never seen faces.? 
On the whole, I believe that I may, without fear of contra- 
diction, affirm this, that of the good books now extant in 



1 



SECOND SPEECH ON COPYRIGHT 39 

the world more than nineteen-twentieths were published 
after the writers had attained the age of forty. If this be so, 
it is evident that the plan of my noble friend is framed on a 
vicious principle. For, while he gives to juvenile productions 
a very much larger protection than they now enjoy, he does 
comparatively little for the works of men in the full maturity 
of their powers, and absolutely nothing for any work which 
is published during the last three years of the life of the 
writer. For, by the existing law, the copyright of such a 
work lasts twenty-eight years from the publication; and my 
noble friend gives only twenty-five years to be reckoned 
from the writer's death. 

What I recommend is, that the certain term, reckoned from 
the date of publication, shall be forty-two years instead of 
twenty-eight years. In this arrangement there is no uncer- 
tainty, no inequality. The advantage which I propose to 
give will be the same to every book. No work will have so 
long a copyright as my noble friend gives to some books, 
or so short a copyright as he gives to others. No copyright 
will last ninety years. No copyright will end in twenty-eight 
years. To every book published in the course of the last 
seventeen years of a writer's life I give a longer term of copy- 
right than my noble friend gives; and I am confident that 
no person versed in literary history will deny this — that in 
general the most valuable works of an author are published 
in the course of the last seventeen years of his life. I will 
rapidly enumerate a few, and but a few, of the great works 
of English writers to which my plan is more favorable than 
my noble friend's plan. To Lear, to Macbeth, to Othelloy 
to the Fairy Queen, to the Paradise Lost, to Bacon's" Novum 
Organum and De Augmentis, to Locke's" Essay on the Human 
Understanding, to Clarendon's" History, to Hume's" History, 
to Gibbons' History, to Smith's" Wealth of Nations, to Addi- 
son's" Spectators, to almost all the great works of Burke, 
to Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison, to Joseph Andrews, 
Tom Jones, and Amelia, and, with the single exception of 



40 . MACAULAY 

Waverley, to all the novels of Sir Walter Scott, I give a longer 
term of copyright than my noble friend gives. Can he match 
that list? Does not that list contain what England has 
produced greatest in many various ways — poetry, philosophy, 
history, eloquence, wit, skilful portraiture of life and man- 
ners? I confidently, therefore, call on the Committee to 
take my plan in preference to the plan of my noble friend. 
I have shown that the protection which he proposes to give 
to letters is unequal, and unequal in the worst way. I have 
shown that his plan is to give protection to books in inverse 
proportion to their merit. I shall move, when we come to the 
third clause of the bill, to omit the words "twenty-five 
years"; and in a subsequent part of the same clause I shall 
move to substitute for the words "twenty-eight years" 
the words "forty-two years." I earnestly hope that the 
Committee will adopt these amendments; and I feel the firm- 
est conviction that my noble friend's bill, so amended, will 
confer a great boon on men of letters with the smallest pos- 
sible inconvenience to the public. 



INTRODUCTION 

A BRIEF SKETCH OF LINCOLN'S LIFE 

When we hear or read the marvelous sentences beginning 
"Fourscore and seven years ago" and ending "... and that 
government of the people, by the people, for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth," even the least curious of 
us inquire immediately concerning the antecedents of the 
author. And when we find how lowly was his birth and how 
inauspicious the initial steps of his career, we are prone, 
like the people of Christ's time, to wonder if any good thing 
can come from such humble environments. 

Abraham Lincoln was born near Hodgensville, Kentucky, 
February 12, 1809. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a 
thriftless, roving carpenter. His mother, Nancy Hanks, was 
above the average woman of her time, for she could read 
and write. She succeeded in teaching her husband to write 
his own name in a sprawHng manner. Nancy Hanks was 
not a strong woman, and the hard work and severe exposure 
attending pioneer life brought her to an early grave, and 
left young Abraham motherless at the tender age of eight 
years. 

It would be difficult for many of us to imagine the abject 
poverty and the hopeless outlook that filled the lives of the 
Thomas Lincoln family on their barren farm near Hodgens- 
ville. Conscious that he could never pay for his farm, dis- 
gusted with slavery, or prompted by his innate love of roving, 
Thomas Lincoln left Kentucky and moved to Spencer 
County, Indiana. Here, not far from Gentryville, in the 
year 18 17, Abraham and his father constructed a half-faced 
shack. It was during this same year that Nancy Hanks 
Lincoln died and was buried without funeral rites, for there 
was no minister in the Hoosier wilds. This unceremonious 
burial grieved Abraham and he succeeded, after the lapse of 
several months, in having David Elkins, an itinerant preacher, 

41 



42 INTRODUCTION 

brought from Kentucky to preach a funeral sermon over the 
snow-covered mound. 

That winter was a severe one on the father and his two 
ragged children, but brighter days followed, for, before 
another winter, Thomas Lincoln married Sarah Bush Johnson, 
a widow with three children. The coming of this energetic 
Christian woman marked a change in the home life of the 
Lincolns. Through her influence, thrift and industry took 
the place of slovenly habits and very soon an atmosphere of 
comfort pervaded the home. Of his early surroundings 
Lincoln said, *'It was a wild region, with many bears and 
other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up." 
The task of keeping the wolf from the door and clearing the 
forests required much labor. Abraham did a man's work 
from the time he left school. His stature and strength were 
already far beyond those of ordinary men. He did not like 
work, but he never shirked his share and always did his best. 
One day three men were discussing how they could cooperate 
to carry a very heavy log. Lincoln settled the argument by 
picking up the log and depositing it easily in its proper place. 

His flow of rustic wit and his love for story-telling made 
him a favorite at all neighborhood parties, and his good 
nature and gentleness gained for him the affection of all 
who knew him. Lincoln had an innate desire for knowledge. 
His stepmother soon saw that he was a child of unusual 
ability and did everything she could to encourage him in 
his study. Schools were few and his whole school life covered 
less than a year. When he was ten years old, Azel Dorsey 
taught a school a mile and a half from Abraham's home. 
Dorsey was one of the most active public men in the com- 
munity, and Abraham learned from him that no man has 
a right to be so busy with his own interests as to forget his 
duty to the neighborhood and the State. 

His next term of schooling came when he was fourteen. 
In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic, his new mas- 
ter, Andrew Crawford, taught politeness. These lessons 
made a lasting impression, for Abraham Lincoln never forgot 
to be a gentleman. When he was seventeen years old he 
walked four and a half miles to attend school, but after a 
few weeks had to quit, for his father needed him on the farm. 



INTRODUCTION 43 

Books were among the rarest luxuries in that region and 
time, but he read over and over every book he could obtain. 
He would sit by the firelight after the day's work was done 
and write and cipher on the wooden shovel, shave it ofF 
when covered and then repeat the process. The logs in the 
chimney corner were covered with his notes. Once he walked 
six miles to borrow the only grammar in the neighborhood. 
He studied it thoroughly, often handing it to a friend to 
hold while he recited the rules and definitions. The books 
that made up his library were: The Bible, Robinson Crusoe, 
iEsop's Fables, Pilgrim's Progress, and Weems's Life of Wash- 
ingt07i. 

In 1830 Thomas Lincoln moved to Illinois. After the 
family was established in its new home, Abraham went to 
New Salem where he became a clerk in a store owned by 
Mr. OfFutt. It was while in the service of this man that 
he went on a trading expedition to New Orleans, and for the 
first time saw a mart where slaves were being sold at auction. 

In 1832 a war with the Black Hawk Indians broke out in 
northern Illinois and Lincoln was chosen by the men of his 
town to be their captain. By the time Lincoln reached the 
front the war w^as over. Upon his return to New Salem 
he became interested in local politics and, encouraged by 
his friends, he entered the campaign as a candidate for the 
legislature. While making his first stump speech in this race, 
.a drunken fellow caused a disturbance. Lincoln jumped 
down, took the bully by the neck, threw him out of the crowd 
and then calmly resumed his speaking. Lincoln was not 
widely known in the state and was defeated, but he received 
all but three votes out of two hundred in his own neighbor- 
hood. This defeat did not discourage him, but rather aroused 
his ambitions and caused him to apply himself to study with 
greater vigor than ever. 

Lincoln formed a partnership with a young man named 
Berry and bought a store at New Salem. As they had no 
means, the store "winked out" in a short time and Lincoln 
assumed the debts. It took him seventeen years to pay this 
obligation. In 1833 President Jackson made him postmaster 
of New Salem. He carried the mail in his high hat, distrib- 
uting the letters as he chanced to meet the people. He 



44 INTRODUCTION 

enjoyed reading the newspapers that came to the office. In 
the same year the Democrats appointed him deputy surveyor. 
This position paid him more money and also afforded him 
opportunities to meet people and make many friends. ^ 

In 1834 he was elected to the Illinois Legislature as a 
"Henry Clay Whig'', and from 1836 to 1842 he was succes- 
sively reelected to this same position. In 1837 he was instru- 
mental in having the capitol removed from Vandalia to 
Springfield. In the same year he was admitted to the bar 
and began practicing law in Springfield. 

Lincoln was married November 4, 1842, to Mary Todd, 
a proud, pretty and accomplished young woman from Ken- 
tucky, who had great faith in the man she married. She 
declared that his heart was as big as his arm was long and 
that he would one day be president of the United States. 

Lincoln was a candidate for elector on the Harrison and 
Clay tickets in the campaigns of 1840 and 1844, and in 1846 
he was elected a United States Representative over the 
celebrated Peter Cartwright. During this single term in 
Congress Lincoln was chiefly remembered for the active 
part he took against the Mexican War. For several years 
after this he was seemingly indifferent to politics and busied 
himself in building up a good law practice. He had the repu- 
tation of having more clients and of influencing more juries 
than any other lawyer in the state. He was "Honest Abe" 
in law and if he thought his client in the wrong he would 
refuse to take the case. He was called to speak in many 
important cases but his fees were never large. 

In 1854 the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill aroused 
Lincoln to action and he challenged the author of the bill, 
Stephen A. Douglas, to a debate. Douglas accepted the 
challenge. The two men were equally matched and both 
were terribly in earnest. The debates aroused the country 
to the thinking point and Lincoln became a national figure. 
He was invited to speak in all parts of the country, except 
the South. In i860 he delivered the memorable Cooper 
Union Speech in New York City. When he returned to 
Illinois his friends began to urge him to consider the presi- 
dency, but Lincoln replied in all sincerity, "I do not consider 
myself fit for the presidency." 



INTRODUCTION 45 

When the RepubHcan State Convention met at Decatur, 
IlHnois, May 9 and 10, i860, it unanimously indorsed Lin- 
coln for the presidency. Later the national Republican 
Convention at. Chicago, after an intensely exciting session, 
nominated him for the presidency with Hannibal Hamlin 
for the vice-presidency, and at the same time adopted a 
strong anti-slavery platform. 

Lincoln was at Springfield when the telegram announcing 
the news of his nomination came to him. He silently read 
the message, then turning to his friends said, *'Boys, there is 
a little woman down the street who will be pleased to know 
about this. I think I will go and tell her." In November 
Abraham Lincoln was elected by a large plurality over J. 
C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, and John Bell. On 
March 4, 1861, Lincoln took the oath of office as president 
of the United States. On April 14, 1861, the Confederacy 
fired on Fort Sumter and the next morning, the President 
issued a call for 75,000 men to defend the Union. Nearly 
100,000 men volunteered. His most memorable act during 
his presidency was the promulgation of the Emancipation 
Proclamation that gave freedom to all slaves within the 
enemy's country on January i, 1863. In the fall of 1864 
Lincoln was reelected president by a vote of 212 to 21. On 
the night of April 14, 1865, he was shot in his box at Ford's 
Theater, Washington, by John Wilkes Booth, a fanatical 
actor. He died the following morning, April 15, 1865. Of 
this untimely death General Grant said, "In his death the 
nation lost its greatest hero; in his death the South lost its 
most just friend." 



SOME FACTS LEADING UP TO THE COOPER UNION SPEECH 

W^hile yet a boy in Kentucky Lincoln learned of slavery, 
and, if slavery was the cause of Thomas Lincoln giving up 
his farm and moving to Indiana, undoubtedly young Abraham 
acquired early in life a hatred of the traffic and the conditions 
arising therefrom. In 1828 he accompanied young Gentry 
on a business trip to New Orleans. There he came in con- 
tact with the slave system in its most highly organized form. 



46 INTRODUCTION 

In 183 1, on his second trip, this time in the employ of Mr. 
OfFutt, Lincoln saw a negro auction for the first time. This 
experience was very repulsive to him and as he left the place 
he very prophetically "said: "Boys, let's get away from this. 
If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard!" 

Space forbids a detailed treatment of all the developments 
and complications in government growing out of slavery, 
so this little treatise limits itself to those events most influen- 
tial on the life and speeches of Abraham Lincoln. From 
his earliest years he was an industrious student and from 
Weems's Life of Washington he acquired a strong desire to 
study political and national issues. A little later we shall see 
how this desire led him on until in his Cooper Union Speech 
he displayed a marvelous fund of information concerning 
slavery and disunion, and a logic born of a thorough under- 
standing of his subject and of feelings outraged, yet clearly 
true in all their bearings. 

The Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio River formed 
the accepted boundary between slave and free states as far 
west as the Mississippi River. In the North, slaves were 
not as profitable as in the South so slavery did not prevail, 
and the feeling that the whole matter was brutally unjust 
grew steadily in the minds of the people. In the South, on 
the contrary, the negro was a valuable asset, and the belief 
that the slave would be the principal sufferer became an ob- 
session. 

Seven of the thirteen original states were free and the other 
six were slave states. Admission of states was so manipulated 
that in 18 19 there were eleven states for and eleven against 
slavery. This gave an equal vote in the Senate, but the rapid 
growth of the North gave this section a majority in the House 
of Representatives. In 181 8 Missouri, a part of the Louis- 
iana Purchase, asked to be admitted into the Union. The 
Territory itself was divided in its belief in slavery. Louisiana, 
also a part of the Louisiana Purchase, had been admitted 
as a slave state in 181 2. Maine asked to join the Union. 
The North fought the request of Missouri, for she wished to 
be a slave state, and the South would not permit Maine 
to enter the Union unless Missouri was accepted as a sb.ve 
state. This led to the Missouri Compromise in 1820. In this 



INTRODUCTION 47 

compromise Henry Clay, the "Peacemaker" and Lincoln's 
favorite statesman, advocated: (i) Missouri was to come 
into the Union as a slave state; (2) all the remaining territory 
in the Louisiana Purchase, north of the parallel of 36°3o', 
or the southern boundary of Missouri, was to be forever free. 
Maine came into the Union in 1820 and Missouri in 1821. 
Again, free and slave states were evenly divided, and the 
country felt that the slavery question was settled forever. 

In 1850, slavery questions became bolder and pressed 
forward for immediate and satisfactory answers. The states 
affected openly and generally declared their intention of 
withdrawing from the Union if complications could not be 
adjusted. Again Henry Clay offered a compromise known 
as the Omnibus Bill, the essential clauses of which were as 
follows (i) California was to be admitted as a free state; 
(2) but in the rest of the Mexican cession, comprising Utah 
and New Mexico, the people were to decide for themselves 
whether or not they would have slaves; (3) the slave-trade 
(not slavery) was to be abolished in the District of Columbia; 
(4) however, a vigorous and exacting fugitive slave law was 
to be passed. It will be noted that the first and third of 
these were in favor of the North; the others of the South. 

In 1854 Stephen A. Douglas, senator from Illinois, 
prompted, no doubt, by his desire to win the South for his 
coming effort to secure the nomination for president, intro- 
duced a bill in the senate for the establishment of two ter- 
ritories, Kansas and Nebraska. The bill provided that these 
territories should decide whether they would have slavery 
or come into the Union as free states. This measure removed 
the control of the extension of slavery from the federal govern- 
ment and gave it to the people; opened all territory belonging 
to the United States to slavery; produced a civil war in Kan- 
sas, and set at naught the pacifying provisions of the Missouri 
and Omnibus Compromises. It was this legislation that 
called Lincoln from his law office and stimulated him to use 
with deadly effect his complete mastery of the subject of 
slavery against the author of the bill. 

As early as 1837 Lincoln, while in the Illinois legislature, 
showed his positive and righteous stand on the slavery ques- 
tion. The Senate passed, unanimously, and the House, by a 



48 INTRODUCTION 

majority that lacked only the votes of Lincoln and five 
others, resolutions against abolition societies, against the 
federal government interfering with the slave-holding states* 
right of property in fugitive slaves, and against the federal 
government freeing slaves in the District of Columbia with- 
out the consent of the citizens. These resolutions were 
further emphasized by a fourth one that required the Gover- 
nor to forward these pacifying statements of the attitude 
of Illinois toward slavery to .the Governors of other states. 
As already stated Lincoln voted against these resolutions, 
but he was not satisfied to stop with this. So he wrote a 
protest and showed it to his colleagues. All refused to sign 
it except Dan Stone. With only these two signatures the 
protest was offered for the simple reason expressed in the 
last sentence of the protest: "The diflFerence between these 
opinions and those contained in the said resolutions is their 
reason for entering this protest." 

While a member of congress in 1849, Lincoln introduced a 
measure for the abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia. The essentials of this bill were as follows: By the first 
two sections the bringing of slaves into the District, or sell- 
ing them out of it, was prohibited, though officers of the 
Government who were citizens of slave-holding states might 
bring their household servants with them and take them 
away again. By the third section, a temporary system of 
apprenticeship with ultimate emancipation was provided for 
children born of slave mothers after January i, 1850. Under 
section four, provision was made, on application by the 
owners, for the manumission of slaves by the Government, 
the owners to receive the value of the slaves in cash. The 
fifth section provided for the return of fugitive slaves from 
Washington and Georgetown, and the sixth stated that the 
submission of the bill to a popular vote in the District of 
Columbia was to be a condition of its promulgation as law. 

After Lincoln's congressional days were over he became 
more interested in law than in politics. He spoke and worked 
for his party during campaigns, but he had not yet caught 
the vision and hope of being a national character. The 
Kansas-Nebraska bill aroused the people of Illinois, and 
Douglas, astute politician that he was, felt the need of his 



INTRODUCTION 49 

returning to mend his political fences. On October 4, 1854 
Douglas delivered a speech at the State Fair in Spring- 
field and was answered by Lincoln. Douglas in his rebuttal 
appeared to a very poor advantage. Herndon, Lincoln's 
old law partner says of Lincoln on this occasion: "Mr. Lincoln 
demonstrated that he had not lounged about the libraries 
of the Capitol in vain. It was not the old Lincoln, the pride 
and pet of Sangamon County. It was a newer and greater 
Lincoln, that no man there had ever seen or heard, but seeing 
and hearing could never forget." Quoting again from Hern- 
don: "The Nebraska Bill and Mr. Douglas's argument were 
shivered like an oak by a thunderbolt, torn and rent by hot 
bolts of truths." 

Twelve days later Douglas and Lincoln met again at 
Peoria. Douglas spoke for three hours in the afternoon and 
Lincoln for a like period at night. In this speech Lincoln 
showed a knowledge and mastery of the subject of slavery 
unsurpassed by any man of his time. His discussion was 
more elaborate and his arrangement of material much more 
skilful than his initial contest with Douglas at Springfield. 
At the close of the Peoria speech Douglas is reported to have 
told Lincoln that the latter knew more about the question 
of slave prohibition in the Territories than any man Douglas 
had met, and that Lincoln gave him more trouble than all the 
opposition in the Senate. 

The fugitive slave law, as promulgated in the Compromise 
of 1850 and formed into law in the Wilmot Proviso, culmi- 
nated in 1857 in the Dred Scott decision. This ruling of the 
supreme court declared that neither congress nor a territorial 
legislature had a legal right to prohibit slavery in a territory. 
Douglas, for the sake of policy, agreed with this decision 
although it flatly contradicted his idea of "squatter's sover- 
eignty," as expressed in his Kansas-Nebraska bill. But he 
could not accord with President Buchanan's outrageous 
plan of forcing Kansas to come into the Union with its 
Lecompton constitution, so he fought and defeated this pet 
measure of the administration. In agreeing with the Dred 
Scott decision he was inconsistent; in his opposition to the 
Lecompton constitution he made an enemy of the President 
and won many friends among the prominent men in the 



50 INTRODUCTION 

Republican party. With this inconsistency on his tongue 
and the temporary good will of men who thought his opposi- 
tion to the administration meant the beginning of a series 
of repentances, he faced Lincoln in 1858 in their race for the 
senatorship. 

On June 16, 1858 Lincoln gave his wonderful "Divided 
House" speech before the Republican convention that had 
just nominated him as their candidate for United States 
senator, to succeed Stephen A. Douglas. In this speech he 
gave a clear, succinct and courageous statement of condi- 
tions as they appeared to him. He laid down a platform 
which he defended throughout his struggles with Douglas. 
None of his friends, except Herndon, thought the ideas of 
the Springfield address politic. They thought them "fool 
utterances" that were best left unsaid. After his friends 
had passed adversely on his deductions and policies Lincoln 
replied:" "Friends, this thing has been retarded long enough. 
The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; 
and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this 
speech, then let me go down linked to the truth — let me die 
in the advocacy of what is just and right." 

Lincoln's own estimate of this speech is as follows: "If 
I had to draw a pen across my record and erase my whole 
life from remembrance, and I had one choice allowed me 
that I might save from the wreck, I would choose that speech 
and leave it to the world just as it is." 

In the Lincoln-Douglas debates following hard upon the 
"Divided House" speech, Douglas attacked the unity and 
consolidation of the states advocated by Lincoln, because 
he believed that the theory would lead to despotism. He 
accused the new party of wishing to abolish slavery entirely, 
of a desire to produce an equality and an amalgamation of 
the white and negro races, and advocated his plan of "squat- 
ter's sovereignty" as a cure for all the ailments of the sick 
government. Lincoln denied that the Republicans wished 
to abolish slavery in slave states, maintained that the Dred 
Scott decision should not be considered as operative in politi- 
cal action, ridiculed the idea of universal equality of the races, 
and charged Douglas with political trickery in the whole 
matter. 



INTRODUCTION 5 1 

Immediately after his election Douglas made a tour of 
the southern states and spoke much more boldly than was 
his custom in behalf of slavery. Soon after his return to 
his seat at Washington he was called to Ohio to aid in Mr. 
Dennison's campaign for governor. In his speeches in this 
state, as in all his speeches since the memorable debates 
with Lincoln, he held Lincoln's opinions up for severe adverse 
criticism. The Republicans called for Lincoln. He gave 
two addresses, one at Columbus and the other at Cincinnati. 
In the former speech he analyzed very thoroughly the Dred 
Scott decision and in the latter he summarized the reasons 
for his failure to secure the election to the senatorship. From 
this time on the calls for Lincoln to address gatherings were 
numerous and his authority in matters pertaining to slavery 
and government was widely recognized. One thing he lacked 
and hoped to win — the East. 

THE COOPER UNION SPEECH 

In the fall of 1859 a committee invited Lincoln to speak 
in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. Lincoln accepted on the 
condition that he be permitted to give a political address 
the following February. In the meantime for some reason 
the engagement was transferred to another committee and 
Lincoln was requested to make his address before The Young 
Men's Central Republican Union of New York. 

On the night of February 27, i860 Lincoln stood before 
an audience of the elite of the East. The Tribune next 
morning said, "Since the days of Clay and Webster no man 
has spoken to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental 
culture of our city." Lincoln was anxious to win this more 
cultured East and the East was just as anxious to learn by 
what magic this crude westerner had met and put to a sore 
contest one of the ranking statesmen of the country. 

Of Lincoln's appearance and the impression he made let 
us have Hon. Joseph H. Choate, who was present on that 
occasion, speak for us: "It is now forty years since I first 
saw and heard Abraham Lincoln, but the impression which 
he left on my mind is ineffaceable. After his great successes 
in the West he came to New York to make a political address. 



52 INTRODUCTION 

He appeared in every sense of the word like one of the plain i 
people among whom he loved to be counted. At first sight 
there was nothing impressive or imposing about him — except 
that his great stature singled him out from the crowd; his 
clothes hung awkwardly on his gigantic frame, his face was 
of a dark pallor, without the slightest tinge of color; his 
seamed and rugged features bore the furrows of hardship 
and struggle; his deep-set eyes looked sad and anxious; his 
countenance in repose gave little evidence of that brain 
power which had raised him from the lowest to the highest 
station among his countrymen; as he talked to me before 
the meeting, he seemed ill at ease, with that sort of appre- 
hension which a young man might feel before presenting him- 
self to a new and strange audience, whose critical disposition 
he dreaded. It was a great audience, including all the noted 
men — all the learned and cultured — of his party in New York; 
editors, clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, critics. 
They were all very curious to hear him. His fame as a power- 
ful speaker had preceded him, and exaggerated rumor of 
his wit — the worst forerunner of an orator — had reached 
the East. When Mr. Bryant " presented him, on the high 
platform of the Cooper Institute, a vast sea of eager upturned 
faces greeted him, full of intense curiosity to see what this rude 
child of the people was like. He was equal to the occasion. 
When he spoke he was transformed; his eye kindled, his 
voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up the whole 
assembly. For an hour and a half he held his audience in 
the hollow of his hand. His style of speech and manner of 
delivery were severely simple. What Lowell called 'the 
grand simplicities of the Bible,' with which he was so familiar, 
were reflected in his discourse. With no attempt at ornament 
or rhetoric, without parade or pretense, he spoke straight 
to the point. If any came expecting the turgid eloquence 
or the ribaldry of the frontier, they must have been startled 
at the earnest and sincere purity of his utterances. It was 
marvelous to see how this untutored man by mere self- 
discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had out- 
grown all meretricious arts, and found his own way to the 
grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity. 

"He spoke upon the theme which he had mastered so 



INTRODUCTION 53 

thoroughly. He demonstrated by copious historical proofs 
and masterly logic that the fathers who created the Constitu- 
tion in order to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, 
and to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their 
posterity, intended to empower the Federal Government 
to exclude slavery from the territories. In the kindliest 
spirit he protested against the avowed threat of the Southern 
States to destroy the Union if, in order to secure freedom 
in these vast regions out of which future States were to be 
carved, a Republican President were elected. He closed 
with an appeal to his audience, spoken with all the fire of 
his aroused and kindling conscience, with a full outpouring 
of his love of justice and liberty, to maintain their political 
purpose on that lofty and unassailable issue of right and 
wrong which alone could justify it, and not to be intimidated 
from their high resolve and sacred duty by any threats of 
destruction to the Government or of ruin to themselves. 
He concluded with this telling sentence, which drove the 
whole argument home to all our hearts: 'Let us have faith 
that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end 
dare to do our duty as we understand it.' That night the 
great hall, and the next day the whole city, rang with de- 
lighted applause and congratulations, and he who had come 
as a stranger departed with the laurels of a great triumph." 

This address was no doubt the best prepared of any he 
ever made. It lacks every cheap trick of oratory and dis- 
covers at every turn a sound political philosopher. Those 
who came with the expectation of hearing an exaggerated 
rhetorical effort were certainly disappointed, for the simple, 
effective arguments move swiftly and certainly from "an 
agreed starting-point" to a convincing conclusion equal to 
a call to battle. 

His text is a sentence taken from a speech of Senator 
Douglas's, made in the Ohio campaign, "Our fathers, when 
they framed the government under which we live, understood 
this question just as well and even better than we do now." 
Lincoln defined this question with an exactness peculiar to 
his well-disciplined mind. He then analyzed minutely the 
actions and votes of the "fathers" in their dealings with 
slavery. His analysis resolves itself into figures that are so 



54 INTRODUCTION 

simple and convincing that no one can fail to understand 
or believe his conclusions. Then follows a discussion of the 
more prominent beliefs of popular thinking in which he 
kindly and liberally showed the South that they were im- 
patienth" and falsely accusing the Republican Party of radi- 
calism and sectionalism. He closed his speech with a clear 
statement of the duties and responsibilities of the Republican 
Party and defined the attitude and duty of free states. 

The next morning the Tribune declared that "Mr. 
Lincoln is one of nature's orators, using his rare powers 
solely to elucidate and convince, though their inevitable 
effect is to dehght and electrify as well." A reprint of the 
speech was made for campaign purposes. A committee 
carefully verified every statement and wrote in the preface 
of the reprint the following significant comment. "No one 
who has not actually attempted to verify its details can 
understand the patient research and historical labor which 
it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is scattered 
through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters; 
and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of 
statement, and in indices and tables of contents. Neither 
can any one who has not traveled over this precise ground 
appreciate the accuracy of every trivial detail, or the self- 
denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln has turned 
from the testimony of *the fathers' on the general question 
of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. 
From the first line to the last, from his premises to his con- 
clusion, he travels with a swift, unerring directness which 
no logician ever excelled, an argument complete and full, 
without the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness 
which usuall}^ accompanies dates and details. A single, easy, 
simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words, contains a chap- 
ter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor 
to verify, and which must have cost the author months of 
investigation to acquire." 

Editorial from the Daily Tribune, February 28, i860 

The speech of Abraham Lincoln at the Cooper Institute last evening was 
one of the happiest and most convincing political arguments ever made 



INTRODUCTION 55 

in this City, and was addressed to a crowded and most appreciating audience. 
Since the days of Clay and Webster, no man has spoken to a larger assem- 
blage of the intellect and mental culture of our City. Mr. Lincoln is one 
of Nature's orators, using his rare powers solely and effectivel}' to elucidate 
and to convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify 
as well. We present herewith a very full and accurate report of this Speech; 
yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye and the mirth-provoking look, 
defy the reporter's skill. The vast assemblage frequently rang with cheers 
and shouts of applause, which were prolonged and intensified at the close. 
No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New 
York audience. 

Mr. Lincoln speaks for the Republican cause tonight at Providence, R. L, 
and it is hoped that he will find time to speak once or more in Connecticut 
before he sets his face homeward. 

We shall soon issue his speech of last night in pamphlet form for cheap 
circulation. 

The leading editorial in the Post is headed, 
"Mr. Lincoln's Speech." 

When we have such a speech as that of Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, 
delivered at the Cooper Institute last evening to a crowded, deeply interested 
and enthusiastic audience, we are tempted to wish that our columns were 
indefinitely elastic. The world is growing almost too busy and too mis- 
chievous for the newspapers to keep pace with it. Atrocious crimes and 
frightful accidents; political intrigues and public meetings; the proceedings 
of legislatures and conventions; letters of great men on great questions; 
new discoveries in science; new productions in literature; new triumphs 
achieved in art; new methods adopted in agriculture; new political agita- 
tions in Europe; important movements in the religious world; changes in 
the course of trade, and ups and downs in the money market, crowd upon 
each other with such rapidity that no journal at the present day can give 
anything more than a selection from the narrative of contemporary events 
and the record of contemporary discussions. The happy age when a news- 
paper printed all the news it could get, important or trivial, passed away 
several years since. 

We have made room for Mr. Lincoln's speech notwithstanding the pressure 
of other matters, and our readers will see that it was well worthy of the deep 
attention with which it was heard. That part of it in which the speaker 
places the Republican party on the very ground occupied by the framers 
of our constitution and fathers of our republic, strikes us as particularly 
forcible. In this great controversy the Republicans are the real conservative 
party. They simply adhere to a policy which had its origin with George 
Washington of Virginia, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Abraham 
Baldwin of Georgia, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and other men 
from other states worthy to be named with them. It is remarkable how 
perfectly all the eminent statesmen of that age were agreed upon the great 
question of slavery in the territories. They never thought of erecting the 
slaveholding class into an oligarchy which was to control the political 



56 INTRODUCTION 

administration of the whole country, dictate to the judiciary, and invade 
and occupy the new regions possessed by the confederacy. They regarded 
it — and this fully appears from authentic and -undisputed records — by a 
consent next to unanimous, as a class which was never to exist beyond the 
limits of the old thirteen states. At that time the slaveholders were content 
to await, within the limits they occupied, the hour, which Washington, him- 
self one of their number, benevolent and liberal-minded as he was, hoped was 
not far distant, when our republic should present to the world the spectacle 
of " a confederacy of free states." All the clamor about northern aggression, 
all the menaces of a dissolution of the Union, have only this grievance as 
their cause, that we think as Washington thought, hope as he hoped, and 
act as he acted; and they have only this object in view, to force us from 
the course he approved and which our consciences approve still, and compel 
us to adopt a new policy, new measures, new views of the meaning of the 
constitution, opening the gates of the territories to the barbarian institution 
which our fathers intended should wither into decrepitude, and pass to its 
dissolution within its original limits. 

All this may not be new, but it is most logically and convincingly stated 
in the speech — and it is wonderful how much a truth gains by a certain 
mastery of clear and impressive statement. But the consequences to which 
Mr. Lincoln follows out the demands of these arrogant innovators give an 
air of novelty to the closing part of his argument. What they require of 
us is not only a surrender of our long-cherished rights, inherited from our 
ancestors and theirs; not only a renunciation of the freedom of speech, but a 
hypocritical confession of doctrines which revolt both our understanding 
and our conscience, a confession extorted by the argument of the highway- 
men, the threat of violence and murder. There is to be no peace with the 
South till the slaveholders shall have forced us to say that slavery is right — 
not merely to admit it by silence, but to shout the accursed doctrine with 
all the strength of our lungs. With the renunciation of the creed of liberty 
must come the reconsideration and rejection of our free constitutions. Every 
one of the constitutions of the free states puts the stigma of public abhorrence 
upon slavery, and is an offence and an insult to the slaveholder. They who 
cannot submit to allow the natural lawfulness of slavery to be questioned 
in public debate, or in the discussions of the press, certainly will not tolerate 
the more solemn declaration of the right of all men to freedom embodied 
and proclaimed in the state constitutions of the North and West. One by 
one these state constitutions must be given up, torn in pieces, and trampled 
under foot at the bidding of the preachers of the new political gospel. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Full Biographies: 

Abrahavi Lincoln, A History, Nicolay and Hay. 
Abraham Lincoln, John T. Morse, Jr. 
Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, W. H. 

Herndon. 
Life of Abraham Lincoln, Ida Tarbell. 
Life of Abraham Lincoln, Norman Hapgood. 
Six Months at the White House, or The Inner Life of 

Abraham Lincoln, Frank B. Carpenter. 
The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Henry J. Raymond. 
Estimate of Lincoln: 

Abraham Lincoln, an Essay, Carl Schurz. 

Essay on Abraham Lincoln, James Russell Lowell. 

Life of Lincoln, Charles G. Leland in the New Plutarch 

Series, Chapter XIII. 
Life of Lincoln, Dr. J. G. Holland. 
Lincoln Selections, Charles W. Moores. 
"The Spectator," London, April 25, and May 2, 1891. 
For Younger Students: 

Abraham Lincoln, A True Life, James Baldwin. 

Abraham Lincoln, The Pioneer Boy, W. N. Thayer. 

Abraham Lincoln, W. 0. Stoddard. 

Lincoln, The Man of the People, William H. Mace. 

The Life of Abraham Lincoln for Boys and Girls, Charles 

W. Moores. 
The True Story of Abraham Lincoln, The American, 
E. S. Brooks. 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Mr. President and Fellow-citizens of New York: 

The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly 
old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general 
use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it 
will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the in- 
ferences and observations following that presentation. In 
his speech last autumn" at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in 
the New York Times, Senator Douglas said: "Our fathers, 
when they framed the government under which we live, un- 
derstood this question just as well, and even better, than we 
do now." 

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this dis- 
course. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an 
agreed starting-point for a discussion between Republicans 
and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. 
It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding 
those fathers had of the question mentioned .? 

What is the frame of government under which we live? 
The answer must be, "The Constitution of the United 
States." That Constitution consists of the original, framed 
in 1787, and under which the present government first went 
into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments, 
the first ten of which were framed in 1789. 

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution.? 
I suppose the "thirt^^-nine" who signed the original instru- 
ment may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part 
of the present government. It is almost exactly true to say 
they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly 
represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation 

59 



V 



6o LINCOLN 

at that time. Their names," being familiar to nearly all, 
and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated. 

I take these *' thirty-nine," for the present, as being **our 
fathers who framed the government under which we live." 
What is the question which, according to the text, those 
fathers understood ''just as well, and even better, than we do 
now".? 

It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal 
authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Terri- 
tories? 

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and 
Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial 
form an issue; and this issue — this question is — precisely 
what the text declares our fathers understood "better than 
we." Let us now inquire whether the ''thirty-nine," or any 
of them, ever acted upon this question; and if they did, how 
they acted upon it — how they expressed that better under- 
standing. In 1784, three years before the Constitution, the 
United States then owning the Northwestern Territory,'* 
and no other, the Congress of the Confederation had be- 
fore them the question of prohibiting slavery in that Terri- 
tory; and four of the "thirty-nine" who afterward framed 
the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on that 
question. Of these, Roger Sherman," Thomas Mifflin," and 
Hugh Williamson** voted for the prohibition, thus showing 
that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from Fed- 
eral authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 
The other of the four, James McHenry," voted against 
the prohibition, showing that for some cause he thought it 
improper to vote for it. 

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the con- 
vention was in session framing it, and while the Northwestern 
Territory still was the only Territory owned by the United 
States, the same question of prohibiting slavery in the Terri- 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 6l 

tory again came before the Congress of the Confederation; 
and two more of the "thirty-nine" who afterward signed 
the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on the 
question. They were WilHam Blount" and William Few," 
and they both voted for the prohibition — thus showing that 
in their understanding no line dividing local from Federal 
authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 
This time the prohibition became a law, being part of what 
is now well known as the Ordinance of '87. 

The question of Federal control of slavery in the Terri- 
tories seems not to have been directly before the convention 
which framed the original Constitution; and hence it is not 
recorded that the "thirty-nine," or any of them, while en- 
gaged on that instrument, expressed any opinion on that 
precise question. 

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Con- 
stitution, an act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, 
including the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern 
Territory. The bill for this act was reported by one of the 
"thirty-nine" — ^Thomas Fitzslmmons," then a member of 
the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. It went 
through all its stages without a word of opposition, and fi- 
nally passed both branches without ayes and nays, which is 
equivalent to a unanimous passage. In this Congress there 
were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the origi- 
nal Constitution. They were John Langdon," Nicholas 
Oilman," William S. Johnson," Roger Sherman, Robert 
Morris," Thomas Fitzsimmons, William Few, Abraham 
Baldwin," Rufus King," William Paterson," George Clymer," 
Richard Bassett," George Read," Pierce Butler," Daniel 
Carroll," and James Madison. 

This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing 
local from Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitu- 
tion, properly forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the 
Federal Territory; else both their fidelity to correct principle, 



62 LINCOLN 

and their oath to support the Constitution, would have 
constrained them to oppose the prohibition. 

Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," 
was then President of the United States, and as such ap- 
proved and signed the bill, thus completing its validity as 
a law, and thus showing that, in his understanding, no line 
dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything in the 
Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control 
as to slavery in Federal territory. 

No great while after the adoption of the original Constitu- 
tion, North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the 
country now constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few 
years later Georgia ceded that which now constitutes the 
States of Mississippi and Alabama. In both deeds of cession 
it was made a condition by the ceding States that the Fed- 
eral Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded 
country. Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded 
country. Under these circumstances. Congress, on taking 
charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit slavery 
within them. But they did interfere with it — take control 
of it — even there, to a certain extent. In 1798 Congress 
organized the Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organi- 
zation they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Terri- 
tory from any place without the United States, by fine, and 
giving freedom to slaves so brought. This act passed both 
branches of Congress without yeas and nays. In that Con- 
gress were three of the "thirty-nine" who framed the original 
Constitution. They were John Langdon, George Read, and 
Abraham Baldwin. They all probably voted for it. Cer- 
tainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon 
record if, in their understanding, any line dividing local 
from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, 
properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to 
slavery in Federal territory. 

In 1803 the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana 
country. Our former territorial acquisitions came from 



JDDRESS AT COOPER UNION 63 

certain of our own States; but this Louisiana country was 
acquired from a foreign nation. In 1804 Congress gave a 
territorial organization to that part of it which now consti- 
tutes the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying within 
that part, was an old and comparatively large city. There 
were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery 
was extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people. 
Congress did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery; 
but they did interfere with it — take control of it — in a more 
marked and extensive way than they did in the case of 
Mississippi. The substance of the provision therein made in 
relation to slaves was: — 

1st. That no slave should be imported into the Territory 
from foreign parts. 

2d. That no slave should be carried into it who had been 
imported into the United States since the first day of May, 

1798. 

3d. That no slave should be carried into it, except by the 
owner, and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all 
the cases being a fine upon the violator of the law, and free- 
dom to the slave. 

This act also was passed without ayes or nays. In the 
Congress which passed it there were two of the "thirty-nine." 
They were Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton." As 
stated in the case of Mississippi, it is probable they both 
voted for it. They would not have allowed it to pass without 
recording their opposition to it if, in their understanding, 
it violated either the line properly dividing local from Federal 
authority, or any provision of the Constitution. 

In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri question." Many 
votes were taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of 
Congress, upon the various phases of the general question. 
Two of the "thirty-nine" — Rufus King and Charles Pinck- 
ney" — were members of that Congress. Mr. King steadily 
voted for slavery prohibition and against all compromises, 
while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted against slavery pro- 



64 LINCOLN 

hibition and against all compromises. By this, Mr. King 
showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing local 
from Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, 
was violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in Federal 
territory; while Mr. Pinckney, by his votes," showed that, 
in his understanding, there was some sufficient reason for 
opposing such prohibition in that case. 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty- 
nine," or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have 
been able to discover. 

To enumerate the persons who thus acted as being four 
in 1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two 
in 1804, and two in 1819-20, there would be thirty of them. 
But this would be counting John Langdon, Roger Sherman, 
William Few, Rufus King, and George Read each twice, and 
Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of those 
of the ''thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon 
the question which, by the text, they understood better 
than we, is twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have 
acted upon it in any way. 

Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine 
fathers "who framed the government under which. we live," 
who have, upon their official responsibility and their corporal 
oaths," acted upon the very question which the text affirms 
they "understood just as well, and even better, than we do 
now"; and twenty-one of them — a clear majority of the whole 
"thirty-nine" — so acting upon it as to make them guilty of 
gross political impropriety and wilful perjury if, in their 
understanding, any proper division between local and Federal 
authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made 
themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Gov- 
ernment to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. 
Thus the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than 
words, so actions under such responsibility speak still louder. 

Two of the twenty-three voted against congressional pro- 
hibition of slavery in the Federal Territories, in the instances 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 65 

in which they acted upon the question. But for what reasons 
they so vote^ is not known. They may have done so because 
they thought a proper division of local from Federal author- 
ity, or some provision or principle of the Constitution, stood 
in the way; or they may, without any such question, have 
voted against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be 
sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to 
support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what 
he understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however 
expedient he may think it; but one may and ought to vote 
against a measure which he deems constitutional if, at the 
same time, he deems it inexpedient. It, therefore, would be 
unsafe to set down even the two who voted against the pro- 
hibition as having done so because, in their understanding, 
any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any- 
thing in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government 
to control as to slavery in Federal territory. 

The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine,'' so far as I 
have discovered, hav^e left no record of their understanding 
upon the direct question of Federal control of slavery in the 
Federal Territories. But there is much reason to believe 
that their understanding upon that question would not have 
appeared different from that of their twenty-three compeers, 
had it been manifested at all. 

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have 
purposely omitted whatever understanding may have been 
manifested by any person, however distinguished, other 
than the thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Con- 
stitution; and, for the same reason, I have also omitted 
whatever understanding may have been manifested by any 
of the "thirty-nine" even on any other phase of the general 
question of slavery. If we should look into their acts and 
declarations on those other phases, as the foreign slave-trade, 
and the morality and policy of slavery generally, it would 
appear to us that, on the direct question of Federal control 
of slavery in Federal Territories, the sixteen, if they had 



66 LINCOLN 

acted at all, would probably have acted just as the twenty- 
three did. Among that sixteen were several of the most 
noted anti-slavery" men of those times, — as Dr. Franklin, 
Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris," — while there 
was not one now known to have been otherwise, unless it 
may be John Rutledge," of South Carolina. 

The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine fathers 
who framed the original Constitution, twenty-one — a clear 
majority of the whole — certainly understood that no proper 
division of local from Federal authority, nor any part of the 
Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control 
slavery in the Federal Territories; while all the rest had prob- 
ably the same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the 
understanding of our fathers who framed the original Con- 
stitution; and the text affirms that they understood the 
question "better than we." 

But, so far, I have been considering the understanding 
of the question manifested by the framers of the original 
Constitution. In and by the original instrument, a mode 
was provided for amending it; and, as I have already stated, 
the present frame of "the government under which we live" 
consists of that original, and twelve amendatory articles 
framed and adopted since. Those who now insist that 
Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories violates the 
Constitution, point us to the provisions which they sup- 
pose it thus violates; and, as I understand, they all fix upon 
provisions in these amendatory articles, and not in the origi- 
nal instrument. The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott 
case," plant themselves upon the Fifth Amendment, which 
provides that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty, 
or property without due process of law"; while Senator Doug- j 
las and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the 
Tenth Amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated 
to the United States by the Constitution" "are reserved 
to the States respectively, or to the people." 

Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 67 

by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution — 
the identical Congress which passed the act, already men- 
tioned, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the North- 
western Territory. Not only was it the same Congress, but 
they were the identical, same individual men who, at the 
same session, and at the same time within the session, had 
under consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these 
constitutional amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery 
in all the territory the nation then owned. The constitu- 
tional amendments were introduced before, and passed after, 
the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so that, during the 
whole pendency ^ of the act to enforce the Ordinance, the 
constitutional amendments were also pending. 

The seventy-six members of that Congress, including 
sixteen of the framers of the original Constitution, as before 
stated, were preeminently our fathers who framed that part 
of "the government under which we live" which is now 
claimed as forbidding the Federal Government to control 
slavery in the Federal Territories. 

Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to 
affirm that the two things which that Congress deliberately 
framed, and carried to maturity at the same time, are abso- 
lutely inconsistent with each other? And does not such 
affirmation become impudently absurd when coupled with 
the other affirmation, from the same mouth, that those who 
did the two things alleged to be inconsistent, understood 
whether they really were inconsistent better than we — better 
than he who affirms that they are inconsistent .? 

It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers 
of the original Constitution, and the seventy-six members 
of the Congress which framed the amendments thereto, 
taken together, do certainly include those who may be fairly 
called ''our fathers who framed the government under which 
we live." And so assuming, I defy any man to show that 
any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his 
1 State of being determined. 



68 LINCOLN 

understanding, any .proper division of local from Federal 
authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal 
Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show 
that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to 
the beginning of the present century (and I might almost 
say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present cen- 
tury), declare that, in his understanding, any proper division 
of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitu- 
tion, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery 
in the Federal Territories. To those who now so declare I 
give not only "our fathers who framed the government under 
which we live," but with them all other living men within 
the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, 
and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single 
man agreeing with them. 

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being mis- 
understood. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow 
implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be 
to discard all the lights of current experience — to reject all 
progress, all improvement. What I do say is that if we would 
supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, 
we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument 
so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and 
weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof 
we ourselves declare they understood the question better 
than we. 

If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper 
division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the 
Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as 
to slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to say so, 
and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair ar- 
gument which he can. But he has no right to mislead others, 
who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, 
into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the govern- 
ment under which we live" were of the same opinion — thus 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 69 

substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence 
and fair argument. If any man at this day sincerely believes 
"our fathers who framed the government under which we 
live" used and applied principles, in other cases, which ought 
to have led them to understand that a proper division of 
local from Federal authority, or some part of the Consti- 
tution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to 
slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to say so. But 
he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of de- 
claring that, in his opinion, he understands their principles 
better than they did themselves; and especially should he 
not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "under- 
stood the question just as well, and even better, than we do 
now." 

But enough! Let all who believe that "our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live understood 
this question just as well, and even better, than we do now," 
speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is 
all Republicans ask — all Republicans desire — in relation to 
slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, 
as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and pro- 
tected only because of and so far as its actual presence among 
us makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let all 
the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but 
fully and fairly, maintained. For this Republicans contend, 
and with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content. 

And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose they will 
not, — I would address a few words to the Southern people. 

I would say to them: You" consider yourselves a reasonable 
and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities 
of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. 
Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to 
denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than 
outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, 
but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."" In all your 
contentions with one another, each of you deems an uncon- 



70 LINCOLN 

ditlonal condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the 
first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation 
of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so 
to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak 
at all. Now can you or not be prevailed upon to pause and 
to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to your- 
selves.? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and 
then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. 

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an 
issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce 
your proof; and what is it.? Why, that our party has no exis- 
tence in your section — gets no votes in your section. The 
fact is substantially true; but does it prove the issue? If it 
does, then in case we should, without change of principle, 
begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to 
be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, 
are you willing to abide by it.? If you are, you will probably 
soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall 
get votes in your section this very year.** You will then begin 
to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does not 
touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your sec- 
tion is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there 
be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and re- 
mains so until you show that we repel you by some wrong 
principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong prin- 
ciple or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings 3^ou to 
where you ought to have started — to a discussion of the 
right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in prac- 
tice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or 
for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are 
sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. 
Meet us, then, on the queston of whether our principle, put 
in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet us as if 
it were possible that something may be said on our side. 
Do you accept the challenge.? No! Then you really believe 
that the principle which "our fathers who framed the govern- 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 71 

ment under which we Hve" thought so clearly right as to 
adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official 
oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condem- 
nation without a moment's consideration. 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning 
against sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell 
Address." Less than eight years before Washington gave that 
warning, he had, as President of the United States, approved 
and signed an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of 
slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied 
the policy of the Government upon that subject up to and 
at the very moment he penned that warning; and about one 
year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he considered 
that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same con- 
nection his hope that we should at some time have a confed- 
eracy of free States." 

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has 
since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon 
in your hands against us, or in our hands against you.? Could 
Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that 
sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you, 
who repudiate it.? We respect that warning of Washington, 
and we commend it to you, together with his example point- 
ing to the right application of it. 

But you say you are conservative — eminently conserva- 
tive — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something 
of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to 
the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick 
to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in con- 
troversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed 
the government under which we live"; while you with one 
accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and 
insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree 
among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You 
are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are 
unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the 



72 LINCOLN 

fathers. Some of you" are for reviving the foreign slave- 
trade;" some for a Congressional slave code for the Terri- 
tories;" some for Congress forbidding the Territories to pro- 
hibit slavery within their limits;" some for maintaining 
slavery in the Territories through the judiciary;" some for 
the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave 
another, no third man should object," fantastically called 
*' popular sovereignty";" but never a man among you is in 
favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal Territories, 
according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the 
government under which we live." Not one of all your vari- 
ous plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century 
within which our government originated. Consider, then, 
whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your 
charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most 
clear and stable foundations. 

Again, you say we have made the slavery question more 
prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit 
that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. 
It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the 
fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation; and 
thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would 
you have that question reduced to its former proportions.? 
Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, 
under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of 
the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times. 

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your 
slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! 
John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you 
have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's 
Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in 
that matter, you know it, or you do not know it. If you do 
know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man 
and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inex- 
cusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the 
assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 73 

You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one 
does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander. 

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided 
or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair," but still insist 
that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such 
results. We do not believe it. We know we hold no doc- 
trine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and 
made by "our fathers who framed the government under 
which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to 
this affair. When it occurred, some important State elec- 
tions were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with 
the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could 
get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections 
came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every 
Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your 
charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it 
to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and 
declarations are accompanied with a continual protest 
against any interference whatever with your slaves, or with 
you about your slaves." Surely, this does not encourage 
them to revolt. True, we do, in common with "our fathers 
who framed the government under which we live," declare 
our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear 
us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the slaves 
would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe 
they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your mis- 
representations of us in their hearing. In your political con- 
tests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with 
sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point 
to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be 
insurrection, blood, and thunder among the slaves. 

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they 
were before the Republican party was organized. What 
induced the Southampton insurrection," twenty-eight years 
ago, in which at least three times as many lives were lost as 
at Harper's Ferry .? You can scarcely stretch your very elas- 



74 LINCOLN 

tic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was "got up 
by Black Republicanism." In the present state of things 
in the United States, I do not think a general, or even a 
very extensive, slave insurrection is possible. The indispen- 
sable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have 
no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary free- 
men, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are 
everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can be 
supplied, the indispensable connecting trains. 

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of 
slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, 
at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely be 
devised and communicated to twenty individuals before 
some one of them, to save the life of a favorite master or mis- 
tress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the slave revo- 
lution in Hayti " was not an exception to it, but a case occur- 
ring under peculiar circumstances. The Gunpowder Plot'* 
of British history, though not connected with slaves, was 
more in point. In that case, only about twenty were ad- 
mitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to 
save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by con- 
sequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from 
the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, 
and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue 
to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general 
insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country 
for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes, for 
such an event, will be alike disappointed. 

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, 
"It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation 
and deportation peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that 
the evil will wear off insensibly; and their places be, pari 
passu,^ filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, 
it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the 

prospect held up." 

1 With equal speed. 



JDDRESS AT COOPER UNION 75 

Mr. JefFerson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power 
of emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke 
of Virginia; and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of 
the slaveholding States only. The Federal Government, 
however, as we insist, has the power of restraining the ex- 
tension of the institution — the power to insure that a slave 
insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which 
is now free from slavery. 

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave in- 
surrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a 
revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to partici- 
pate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their 
ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That 
affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, 
related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. 
An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till 
he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. 
He ventures the attempt, which ends in little less than his 
own execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon," and 
John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry, were, in their phil- 
osophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame 
on old England in the one case, and on New England in the 
other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things. 

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the 
use of John Brown, Helper's book," and the like, break up 
the Republican organization? Human action can be modi- 
fied to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. 
There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this 
nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes." 
You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling — that senti- 
ment — by breaking up the political organization which rallies 
around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army 
which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest 
fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing 
the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel 
of the ballot-box into some other channel.? What would 



^(i LINCOLN 

that other channel probably be? Would the number of John 
Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation? 

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a 
denial of your constitutional rights. 

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be pal- 
liated/ if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere 
' force of numbers, to deprive you of some right plainly written 
down in the Constitution. But we are proposing no such 
thing. 

When you make these declarations you have a specific and 
well-understood allusion to an assumed constitutional right 
of yours to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to 
hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically 
written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally 
silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that 
such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by 
implication. 

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy 
the government, unless you be allowed to construe and force 
the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute be- 
tween you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events. 

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will 
say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed constitu- 
tional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving 
the lawyer's distinction between dictum and decision, the 
Court has decided the question for you in a sort of way. 
The Court has substantially said, it is your constitutional 
right to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold 
them there as property. When I say the decision was made 
in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided court, by a 
bare majority of the judges, and they not quite agreeing 
with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so 
made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another 
about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a 
mistaken statement of fact — the statement in the opinion 
^ Reduced in violence, severity, or painfulness. 



JDDRESS AT COOPER UNION JJ 

that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed in the Constitution." 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right 
of property in a slave is not ''distinctly and expressly af- 
firmed" in it. Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their 
judicial opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in the 
Constitution; but they pledge their veracity that it is ''dis- 
tinctly and expressly" affirmed there — "distinctly," that is, 
not mingled with anything else — "expressly," that is, in 
words meaning just that, without the aid of any inference, 
and susceptible of no other meaning. 

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such 
right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would 
be open to others to show that neither the word "slave" 
nor "slavery" is to be found in the Constitution, nor the 
word "property" even, in any connection with language 
alluding to the things slave, or slavery; and that, wherever in 
that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a "per- 
son"; and wherever his master's legal right in relation to 
him is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor which 
may be due" — as a debt payable in service or labor. Also 
it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that 
this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speak- 
ing of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the 
Constitution the idea that there could be property in man. 

To show all this is easy and certain.^ 

When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be brought 
to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will 
withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the con- 
clusion based upon it.? 

And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers who 
framed the government under which we live" — the men 
who made the Constitution — decided this same constitu- 
tional question in our favor long ago: decided it without 
division among themselves when making the decision; with- 
out division among themselves about the meaning of it after 



78 LINCOLN 

it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without 
basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts. 

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves 
justified to break up this government unless such a court 
decision as yours is shall be at once submitted to as a con- 
clusive and final rule of political action? But you will not 
abide the election of a Republican President! In that sup- 
posed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, 
you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon 
us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, 
and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I 
shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!" 

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my money — 
was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was 
no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat 
of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruc- 
tion to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be dis- 
tinguished in principle. 

A few words now to the Republicans. It is exceedingly 
desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be 
at peace, and in harmony one with another. Let us Repub- 
licans do our part to have it so. Even though much 
provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. 
Even though the Southern people will not so much as listen 
to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to 
them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. 
Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature 
of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what 
will satisfy them. 

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally 
surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their 
present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely 
mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. 
Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothing to do 
with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. 
We so know, because we know we never had anything to 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 79 

do with Invasions and insurrections; and yet this total ab- 
staining does not exempt us from the charge and the denun- 
ciation. 

The question recurs, What will satisfy them? Simply 
this: we must not only let them alone, but we must somehow 
convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know 
by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to 
convince them from the very beginning of our organization, 
but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we 
have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but 
this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing 
to convince them is the fact that they have never detected 
a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. 

These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, 
what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call 
slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this 
must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. 
Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avow- 
edly with them. Senator Douglas's new sedition law" must 
be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that 
slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in 
pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their 
fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down 
our free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must 
be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before 
they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from 
us. 

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in 
this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let 
us alone; do nothing to us, and say what you please about 
slavery." But we do let them alone, — have never disturbed 
them, — so that, after all, it is what we say which dissatisfies 
them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we 
cease saying. 

I am also aware that they have not as yet in terms de- 
manded the overthrow of our free State constitutions. Yet 



8o LINCOLN 

those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery with more 
solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against it; and 
when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the 
overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded, and 
nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the 
contrary that they do not demand the whole of this just now. 
Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they 
can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. 
Holding as they do that slavery is morally right and socially 
elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recog- 
nition of it, as a legal right and a social blessing. 

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save 
our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, 
all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it are them- 
selves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If 
it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality — its 
universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon 
its extension — its enlargement. All they ask we could readily 
grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as 
readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it 
right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which 
depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they 
do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition 
as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield 
to them.? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against 
our own.? In view of our moral, social, and political respon- 
sibilities, can we do this? 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it 
alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity 
arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, 
while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the na- 
tional Territories and to overrun us here in these free States.? 
If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our 
duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none 
of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so in- 
dustriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as grop- 



ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 8 1 

ing for some middle ground between the right and the wrong: 
vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living 
man nor a dead man; such as a policy of "don't care" on a 
question about which all true men do care; such as Union 
appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, 
reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the 
righteous to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, 
imploring men to unsay what Washington said and undo 
what Washington did." 

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusa- 
tions against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruc- 
tion to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let 
us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let 
us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

MACAULAY'S SPEECHES 

1. From some standard English history prepare a paper on the 
social and civil conditions in England 1815-1842. 

2. Read Macaulay's Essay on Milton and note his essay style. 
Later compare this style with the oratorical type used in the Copy- 
right Speeches. 

3. Secure from the Copyright Office, Washington, D. C, the 
following publications on copyright and familiarize yourself with 
copyright law and the methods of securing copyright in the United 
States. 

(a) Rules and Regulations for the Registration of Claims to 
Copyright, Bulletin No. 15. 

(b) The Copyright Law of the United States of America, Copy- 
right Office Bulletin No. 14. 

(c) Steps Necessary to Secure Copyright Registration in the 
United States, Explanatory Circular No. 35. 

(d) Application Forms, Explanatory Circular No. 12. 

(e) Copyright Fees, Explanatory Circular No. 3. 

(f ) Report on Copyright Legislation by the Register of Copy- 

rights. 

(g) Berne International Copyright Union, Circular No. 4. 
(These circulars and bulletins are sent free on request.) 

4. Trace the history of patronage and its relation to copyright. 

5. Collect illustrations from the Copyright Speeches to show Ma- 
caulay's wide range of reading. Compare his illustrations with those 
of Lincoln's. 

6. What inconsistency of Talfourd's does Macaulay emphasize .f' 

7. Outline the essential steps in each speech and compare for 
logical clearness. 

8. Does Macaulay ever become personal in his arguments In these 
two speeches.'' 

9. Point out reasons from these speeches to show why they were 
so effective. 

83 



84 SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 



LINCOLN'S ADDRESS 

1. Before reading this speech review thoroughly the essential 
historical facts relating to slavery and leading up to the Cooper 
Union Speech. The short sketch of these facts given in the Intro- 
duction will serve as a guide in the review. 

2. The Constitution of the United States should be re-read with care 
to find what it does or does not say concerning slavery. 

3. The life of Lincoln should be thoroughly studied before any 
analysis of the speech is attempted. 

4. Another lesson or two should be used in considering carefully 
the form and structure of an oration. Consult Brooks' English 
Composition for a discussion of Exposition and Argumentation. 

5. Read the speech through at one sitting and then relate its 
essential points to some person Interested enough to listen to the 
recital. 

6. Make a detailed outline of the speech, giving the cardinal 
points prominence and determining carefully the degree of sub- 
ordination each minor point deserves. Express each point by using 
a complete statement. 

7. Is Lincoln fair to his opponents .f' Go through the entire speech 
for this idea, and gather all the points possible on both the affirma- 
tive and negative sides. 

8. Make a list of concrete illustrations used in this speech and 
determine their effect on the speaker's style. 

9. In the last part of the speech where he talks directly to his 
fellow Republicans does he approach the "preaching" attitude 
at any point.'* 

10. In order to fix definitely some vital impressions of Lincoln's 
simple and forceful style read the following selections from his 
writings: 

Address at Gettysburg. 

Farewell Address at Springfield, Illinois. 

First and Second Inaugural Addresses. 

Letter to General Hooker. 

Letter to Mrs. Blxby. 

Speech Delivered at Springfield, Illinois. 



NOTES 

(The numbers in heavy type refer to the page) 
MACAULAY 

7. Nuncomar. An Indian official, governor of Hugli in 1756. 

9. English Men of Letters. See volume on Macaulay, page 10. 

10. in all his prolonged existence . . . state of excitement. G. 

Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol. I, p. 162. 

15. Sir. This address is made to the Right Honorable Charles 
Shaw Lefevre, Speaker, 1 839-1 857. learned friend. See introduc- 
tion for Sergeant Talfourd's part in this legislation. 

16. Paley. William Paley, a distinguished English theologian 
and philosopher, born 1743 and died 1805. In his Principles of 
Moral and Political Philosophy he maintains that "Whatever is 
expedient is right." Statute of Distributions. A statute regulating 
the distribution of tlie personal estate of intestates. 

17. primogeniture. In English law an exclusive right of inher- 
itance belonging to the eldest son. gavelkind. A law in Kent under 
which land, on the death of the tenant in fee intestate, is divided 
equally among the sons, borough English. A custom prevalent 
in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Somerset, and parts of the Midlands, that 
makes the youngest son, or, if there is no heir, the youngest brother 
heir to the estates. 

18. Maecenas and PoUio. Roman statesmen, patrons of liter- 
ature, friends of Horace and Vergil, the Medici. A rich family of 
Florence that ruled Tuscany, noted for its patronage of the arts. 

19. Louis the Fourteenth. Ruled from 1643-1715. Lord Hali- 
fax. Charles Montague (1661-1715). Lord Oxford. Robert 
Harley (1661-1724). 

20. East India Company. A company organized by London 
merchants in 1600 to compete with the Dutch for the East India 
trade. It became, in time, powerful in finance and politics. Out- 
rageous abuses of this power caused the English government to dis- 
solve the company in 1 85 8. Elizabeth's reign. 1558-1603. Lord 

85 



86 NOTES 

Essex. Robert Devereux (i 567-1601) an English soldier and cour- 
tier who was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. He was beheaded for 
treason. 

21. Prince Esterhazy. Paul Anton (i 786-1 866), a rich Hun- 
garian prince who was powerful in European diplomacy. Dr. 
Johnson. See Halleck's Nezv English Literature, pp. 338-345. 

22. Juvenal. A Roman satiric poet (55. '^-125.^). Rasselas. A 
story written by Dr. Samuel Johnson. 

23. Blenheim. An imposing mansion at Woodstock, Oxford- 
shire, England, built by the nation for John Churchill, the first Duke 
of Marlborough. Strathfieldsaye. The seat of the Duke of Wel- 
lington, located some fifty miles southwest of London. 

24. Charles the Second. Reigned from 1 660-1 685. Cowley's. 
Abraham Cowley, an English poet (161 8-1667). He was one of the 
founders of the Royal Society. Pope. See Halleck's Nezu English 
Literature, pp. 292-299. Lord Bolingbroke. An English author 
and politician (1678-1751). Paternoster Row. A short street 
north of St. Paul's Cathedral. It received this name because so 
many prayer books were sold there. Hayley's. William Hayley, 
an English poet (1745-1820). 

25. Garrick. David Garrick, a famous English actor (1716-1779). 
gave her a benefit. The play was Comus, and the time was April 5, 
1750. Tonson. Jacob Tonson, a noted English bookseller and 
publisher (1656-1736). 

26. Fielding's. Henry Fielding, a celebrated English playwright 
and novelist (1707-1754). Gibbon's. Edward Gibbon, a famous 
English historian (1737-1794) Richardson's. Samuel Richardson, 
an English novelist (1689-1761). His best known novels are 
Pamela, Sir Charles Grandison, and Clarissa Harlowe. See Hal- 
leck's New English Literature, pp. 320-322. 

27. Mr. Wilberforce. William Wilberforce, an English philan- 
thropist, statesman and orator (1759-1833). He was closely asso- 
ciated with Macaulay's father In the fight against slavery. Hannah 
More. An English religious writer (1745-1833). 

28. Clarissa. Clarissa Harlowe, see note on Samuel Richardson, 
page 26. Aldus. A book from the Aldlne press. Caxton. A book 
from the press of William Caxton who Introduced printing Into 
England, 1474. Britannia. The chief work of William Camden, 
an English historian (1551-1623). The book was published in the 
year 1586. 



NOTES 87 

29. John Wesley. An English clergyman (i 703-1 791). He was 
the founder of Methodism. 

31. divide the house. The manner of voting in the House of 
Commons. The ayes pass into the right lobby by way of the 
Speaker's chair and return through the bar; the noes pass by way of 
the bar Into the left lobby and return past the Speaker's chair. 
read a second time. A formal way of tabling the measure indef- 
initely, for very probably Parliament would not be in session in the 
six months nominated In the motion. 

32. Mr. Greene. Mr. Thomas Greene, representative for Lan- 
caster, my noble friend. Lord Mahon (1805-1875). See Introduc- 
tion for the part he had in this legislation. 

34. Madame D'Arblay. Frances Burney, a noted English novel- 
ist ( 1 752-1 840). Miss Austen. Jane Austen, a famous English nov- 
elist (1775-18 1 7). Her chief works are: Sense and Sensibility, Pride 
and Prejudice, and Persuasion. See Halleck's New English Litera^ 
ture, pp. 382-386. 

36. Dryden. A celebrated English poet and dramatist (163 1- 
1700). See Halleck's New English Literature, pp. 265-271, Fleck- 
noe. A British poet and playwright. Dryden used his name 
as the title of a satirical effort against Shadwell. Settle. Elkanah 
Settle, a poet and playwright of little note. He is the Doge in Ah- 
salom and Achitophel. 

37. Burke. Edmund Burke, a celebrated Irish statesman, orator, 
and essayist (i 729-1 797). A very good Idea of his writings can be 
secured by reading his Sublime and the Beautiful and his speech on 
Coficiliation with America. Sophocles. An Athenian dramatic poet 
(495-406 B. C). Demosthenes. An Athenian orator and patriot 
(384-322 B. C.) Cicero's. Marcus TuUius Cicero, a Roman ad- 
vocate, orator, and writer (106-43 B. C). Roscius Amerinus, 
Sextus of Ameria, accused of murdering his father, and defended by 
Cicero. Racine's. Jean Baptiste Racine, a noted French dramatic 
poet (1639-1699). Moliere's. Jean Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere 
was his stage name) a French dramatist (1622-1673). Cervantes. 
Miguel de, a Spanish writer (1547-1615). Schiller. Johann Chrls- 
toph Friedrich von Schiller, a German poet, dramatist, and historian 
( 1 759-1 805). Goethe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German 
poet and prose writer (1749-183 2). 

38. Marmontel. Jean Francois Marmontel, a French critic 
(1723-1799). 



88 NOTES 

39. Bacon. Francis Bacon, a famous English philosopher, jurist, 
and statesman (i 561-1626). Locke. John Locke, an English 
physician, philosopher, and writer on educational subjects. Claren- 
don's. Edward Hyde Clarendon, an English statesman, historian, 
and lord chancellor (1608-1674). Hume's. David Hume, a Scotch 
philosopher and historian (1711-1776). Smith's. Adam Smith, 
a Scottish political economist (1723-1790). Addison's. Joseph 
Addison. See Halleck's New English Literature, 285-289. 

LINCOLN 

50. Abraham Lincoln, Herndon and Weik, Vol. ii, pp. 68-69. 
52. Mr. Bryant. William Cullen Bryant, at that time editor of 
the New York Post was the chairman of the meeting. 

59. last autumn. Lincoln had already replied to Douglas's 
Columbus speech, September 16, 1859. 

60. Their names. See Constitution of the United States in an 
Encyclopedia or the appendix of a United States History. North- 
western Territory. The United States had owned the Northwest 
Territory since 1871, when Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York 
and Virginia yielded their claims to the territory to the Confederate 
States. Roger Sherman, (1721-1793.) He was born in Newton, 
Massachusetts, and died in New Haven, Connecticut. He was at 
different times in his life a shoemaker, county surveyor, merchant, 
lawyer, judge and statesman. He was appointed as a member of the 
committee to prepare the Declaration of Independence; he presented 
before the national congress the plan of representation in the two 
houses, and he signed both the Declaration of Independence and 
the Constitution. Thomas Mifflin, (i 744-1 800.) An American 
soldier and statesman who was born in Philadelphia. He was a 
Major-general in Washington's army, was a member of the "Con- 
way Cabal," and was removed from the Board of War in 1778. He 
served as a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and as 
Governor of Pennsylvania from 1790 to 1799. Hugh Williamson. 
(1735-1819.) A physician and legislator who was born in Notting- 
ham, Pennsylvania. After studying medicine in Edinburgh and 
Utrecht he gained high rank as a physician in Philadelphia. He 
moved to North Carolina where he served as surgeon in the militia of 
that state In 1780-82. He was a member of the Continental Con- 
gress, 1782-1785 and 1787-1788, and served as a Congressman from 
1 790-1 793. He moved to New York City at the close of his work in 



NOTES 89 

Congress. James McHenry. (1753-1816.) A military surgeon and 
politician born in Ireland. He moved to America in 1771, studied 
medicine under Dr. Rush in Philadelphia, joined the army, was 
made a surgeon in 1776 and an assistant secretary to Washington in 
1780. He served in the Confederation Congress and in the Con- 
stitutional Convention. He was influential in having Maryland 
ratify the Constitution. Fort McHenry was so named in his honor. 
61. William Blount. (1744-1800.) He was born in North Carolina 
and died in Tennessee. He served in Congress, 1782-1783 and 1786- 
1787, and was appointed governor of the territory south of the 
Ohio River. He represented Tennessee in the United States Senate 
in 1796, and was expelled from that body on account of his activity 
in a plot to turn Louisiana over to the British. William Few. (1748- 
1828.) He was born in Maryland, lived in Georgia for a considerable 
portion of his life and died in New York. He served as a Colonel in 
the Revolutionary War; in Congress, 1780-1782, and 1785-1788, and 
in the Senate in 1789-1793. Thomas Fitzsimmons. (1741-1811.) 
He was born in Ireland and became a merchant in Philadelphia. He 
commanded a company in the Revolutionary War; was a member of 
the Pennsylvania Assembly for a number of years; served as a dele- 
gate to the Continental Congress in 1 782-1 783 ; was a member of the 
Federal Constitutional Convention in 1787, and of Congress from 
1789-1795. John Langdon. (1741-1819.) He became a successful 
merchant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, his native town. He 
gave money to equip General Stark's brigade, and commanded a 
company at Bennington, Saratoga, and elsewhere. He served New 
Hampshire in a number of capacities at home and at Washington. 
He declined the secretaryship of the Navy and vice-presidency of 
the United States. Nicholas Oilman. (1755-1814.) He was born in 
Exeter, New Hampshire, and died in Philadelphia. He served in 
the Continental army, represented New Hampshire in Congress 
(1786) and assisted in the framing of the Constitution. William S. 
Johnson. (1728-1819.) Hewas born in Stratford, Connecticut. He 
was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in New York, 1765; special 
agent from Connecticut to Great Britain, 1766-1771; United 
States Senator, 1787-1791, and president of Columbia College, 
1787-1800. Not wishing to bear arms against Great Britain, he 
lived in retirement during the Revolutionary War. Robert Morris. 
(1734-1806.) He was born in England and moved to America in 
1747. He became a prosperous merchant, and later used his financial 



90 NOTES 

credit to assist the United States during the Revolution. In the 
Continental Congress he voted against the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, but later he signed it. He established the Bank of North 
America and was superintendent of finance from 1781 to 1784. He 
declined the secretaryship of the Treasury and suggested the name 
of Alexander Hamilton. He engaged in land speculations which 
turned out badly and he was compelled to spend three and a half 
years in confinement for debt. Abraham Baldwin. (1754-1807.) 
An American statesman. He was a member of the Constitutional 
Convention, 1787; Congressman from Georgia, 1789-1799; Sen- 
ator, 1 799-1 807, and president of the Senate, 1 801-1802. Rufus 
King. (1755-1827.) He was born at Scarborough, Maine, and died 
at Jamaica, L. I. He became a member of the Massachusetts Leg- 
islature In 1782; was a member of the committee on revision of style 
and arrangement of the articles of the Constitution; served New 
York State as a Senator and was United States minister in London 
for eight years. After his return to America he was elected in 1813 
and 1819 to the senatorship. He opposed the war of 1812 and the 
admission of Missouri Into the Union as a slave state. William 
Patterson. (1744-1806.) An American statesman and jurist. He 
graduated from Princeton In 1763, and was admitted to the bar in 
1769; Congressman, 1 780-1 781; Senator from New Jersey, 1789- 
1790; Governor of New Jersey, 1791-1793, and Justice of the United 
States Supreme Court from 1793. George Clymer. (1739-1813.) 
He was born In Philadelphia and died In Morrisvllle, Pennsyl- 
vania. He was a member of the Continental Congress In 1776, and 
signed the Declaration of Independence. He was a member of the 
convention that formed the Federal Constitution and was a bul- 
wark of strength both financially and In a legislative capacity to the 
country during the Revolution. Richard Basset. A statesman of 
Delaware. He was a member of Congress in 1787 and also a mem- 
ber of the convention that framed the United States Constitution; 
United States Senator, 1789-1793; Governor of his state, 1798-1801, 
and United States District Judge, 1801-1802. He died in 1815. 
George Read. (1733-1798.) He was an American statesman 
and jurist. He signed the Declaration of Independence as a delegate 
from Delaware. He was Senator, 1789-1793, and Chief Justice of 
Delaware from 1793. Pierce Butler. (1744-1822.) He was born In 
Ireland. He served in the British Army from 1 761-1766, but re- 
signed the position and settled in Charleston, South Carolina, before 



NOTES 91 

the Revolution. He was a member of Congress in 1787; Senator, 
1 789-1 796 and 1 802-1 804. Daniel Carroll. He was born in Mary- 
land and died in Washington, D. C, in 1829. He served as a mem- 
ber of Congress, 1 780-1 784 and 1 789-1 791. He formerly owned the 
site on which the present city of Washington now stands. 

63. Jonathan Dayton. (1760-1824.) He was born at Elizabeth- 
town, New Jersey. He graduated at Princeton; became a brigadier- 
general in the United States Army in 1798; was Speaker of the New 
Jersey Legislature and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention 
of 1787. He was a member of Congress from 1 791-1799 and served 
as a United States Senator from 1799 until 1805. Missouri question. 
See Introduction, page 46. Charles Pinckney. (1746-1825.) He 
was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and was educated at Oxford 
University, England. He began the practice of law in Charleston in 
1769, served as an aide-de-camp to Washington; was promoted to 
the position of brigadier-general in 1783 ; was a prominent member of 
the Constitutional Convention; went as United States Minister to 
France in 1796, but was compelled to leave the country on account 
of the discourtesy of the Directory. He was the Federalist candi- 
date for Vice-President in 1800, and for President in 1804 and 1808. 

64. by his votes. Pinckney was a member of the committee that 
wrote the Ordinance of 1787, and voted negatively on all amend- 
ments proposed to it. corporal oaths. A verbal oath made while 
touching some sacred object, usually the New Testament. The 
term " corporal " discriminates this oath from one that is merely 
spoken or written. 

66. anti-slavery. Franklin in his Petition to Congress in 1790 
asked for the liberty of the negro; Hamilton in his works declared 
slavery detrimental to morality and religion, and a restraint to com- 
merce; Gouverneur Morris denounced slavery as a nefarious Insti- 
tution. Gouverneur Morris. (1752-1816.) He was born in Mor- 
rlsanla. New York, graduated from King's (now Columbia) College, 
New York In 1768 and was admitted to the bar In 1771. He served 
in the Provincial Congress of New York In 1775 and In the Continen- 
tal Congress from 1777 to 1780. He was made assistant superintend- 
ent of finance In 1781 and afterwards became Robert Morris's 
partner In business. He assisted in drafting the Federal Constitu- 
tion; engaged In business In France from 1788 to 1791; was United 
States agent in London In 1791 and served as Minister to France 
from 1792 to 1794 and as a United States Senator from i8pQ to 1 803. 



92 NOTES 

John Rutledge. (1739-1800,) An American statesman. He stud- 
ied law in London in 1761; was a member of tlie Stamp Act Congress 
in 1765; of the South Carolina Convention in 1774 and of the Con- 
tinental Congress in 1 774-1 775; was president of South Carolina's 
new government in 1 776-1 778; elected governor of his state in 1779; 
was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787; was made 
associate Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1789, 
and Chief Justice of South Carolina in 1795, but the appointment 
was not confirmed because he lost his mental powers before the 
time of confirmation. Dred Scott Case. See introduction, page 49. 

69. Black Republicans. Called so derisively on account of their 
friendliness to the negro. 

70. this very year. This was prophetic, for Lincoln, in the fol- 
lowing presidential campaign, received 3815 votes in Delaware, 
2294 in Maryland, 1929 in Virginia, 1364 in Kentucky and 17,028 
in Missouri. These were the only slave states having a Republican 
ticket. 

71. Farewell Address. Washington in this address says: "In 
contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs 
as a matter of serious concern that any ground should have been 
furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations 
Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western." of free States. 
The following is a quotation from this letter: "I have long consid- 
ered it a most serious evil, both socially and politically, and I should 
rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our States of such a burden. . . . 
I consider it (the Ordinance of 1787) a wise measure. . . . The 
prevailing opinion in Virginia is against the spread of slavery in our 
new territories, and I trust we shall have a confederation of free 
States." 

72. Some of you. A convention of slave states at Vicksburg in 
i860 declared that all laws prohibiting the African Slave trade ought 
to be repealed, reviving the foreign slave-trade. W. P. Caulden of 
Georgia in the Democratic Convention of i860 contended that 
foreign slave-trade was more profitable than the traffic between 
states, and that the buying of foreign slaves was a missionary act 
in their behalf, the Territories. The following resolution was in- 
troduced by L. T. Walker of Alabama in the National Democratic 
Convention at Charleston, South Carolina, i860: "The Congress of 
the United States has no power to abolish slavery in the Territories, 
or to prohibit its introduction into any of them." within their 



NOTES 93 

limits. Jefferson Davis's bill, February 2, i860, declaring that 
neither the National Congress nor a Territorial legislature had a 
right to prevent a master from taking his slaves Into a territory and 
holding them for service passed with a vote of 35 to 21. through the 
judiciary. The following resolution was introduced In the National 
Democratic Convention, In i860, by Mr. Henry B. Payne of Ohio. 
"The Democratic party will abide by the decisions of the Supreme 
Court of the United States on the questions of constitutional law." 
This was an indorsement of the Dred Scott decision, popular 
sovereignty. The principle advocated by the Douglas Democrats. 

73. Harper's Ferry affair. In the thirty-sixth Congress Douglas 
declared that the Harper's Ferry incident was due solely to the 
teachings of the Republican party, about your slaves. Lincoln In 
his Cincinnati speech, September 17, 1859, said: "We mean to leave 
you alone, and In no way to interfere with your institution; abide by 
all and every compromise of the Constitution." Southampton 
insurrection. Nat Turner, a negro, led an uprising of negroes in 
Southampton, Virginia, in 1831. More than sixty white people 
were massacred. 

74. revolution in Hayti. A revolution led by Toussaint L'Ouver- 
ture, a negro, and incited by the French governor of the island to 
uphold the Republican government of France against Spain, Eng- 
land, and the aristocratic party in Hayti. This occurred in 1791. 
Gunpowder Plot. An attempt to annihilate King James and his 
parliament, November 5, 1604. Guy Fawkes was to ignite the 
powder, but Tresham, one of the conspirators, disclosed the plot 
by warning his relative. Lord Monteagle, not to be present. 

75. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon. Felice Orsini, an 
Italian, attempted to assassinate Emperor Louis Napoleon by 
throwing a bomb, January 14, 1858. Helper's book. A book writ- 
ten by Hinton Rowan Helper of North Carolina, and published in 
1857. Under the title The Impending Crisis of the South he showed 
that the abolition of slavery would mean a rapid advancement In 
every way for the South. His arguments were so sound and his 
language so intemperately pointed that the slaveholders feared 
the influence of the book, a million and a half of votes. Fremont's 
vote in 1856 was 1,341,264. 

77. easy and certain. "Col. Mason was not against using the 
term 'slaves.' . . . Mr. Sherman liked a description better than 
the terms proposed, which had been declined by the old Congress, 



94 NOTES 

and were not pleasing to some people." Elliott's Debates, vol. v, 
p. 477. These excerpts are from Madison's Journal of the Federal 
Convention. 

79. sedition law. A resolution in the Senate requesting the 
Judiciary committee to report a bill for the protection of a State or 
Territory from the invasion of the authorities or inhabitants of 
another State or Territory. This resolution was presented by Sena- 
tor Douglas on January 16, i860. 

81. undo what Washington did. See note giving a quotation 
from Washington's letter to Lafayette. 



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